The Girls Who Code Book Ban
By Anya Gruteser
Books aiming to guide tweens aren’t new. For example, popular series such as The Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin, aims to teach young kids about ideas like hard work, self-confidence, and friendship while following the story of several girls as they start and run a babysitting business. The Saddle Club shows those lessons through four best friends who form a horse riding club. What is new, however, is a series for the youth being banned from schools.
The Girls Who Code books are one of the tools the international nonprofit organization Girls Who Code uses to encourage girls to enter the computer science field. Their goal is to “close the gender gap in technology and to change the image of what a programmer looks like and does.”
The books highlight stories of girls, often young women of color, and their adventures in the coding club at their school.
Recently, the Central York district in Pennsylvania banned four books in the Girls Who Code series: The Friendship Code; Team BFF: Race to the Finish!; Lights, Music, Code!; and Spotlight on Coding Club!, according to PEN America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and celebrating free expression through literature,
While a statement from district officials denied that they had banned the books, a spokesperson confirmed that they had been banned for ten months. The books had been on a list of suggested books proposed by the district’s diversity committee. In November 2020, this entire list was banned, but the ban was later rescinded after public pressure in September 2021.
In order to explain the banning of the list, Jane Johnson, the president of the school district’s board at that time stated, “What we are attempting to do is balance legitimate academic freedom with what could be literature/materials that are too activist in nature, and may lean more toward indoctrination rather than age-appropriate academic content.”
When Reshma Saujani, the CEO of Girls Who Code, heard this news, she said, “I was just shocked. This is about controlling women and it starts with controlling our girls and what info they have access to.”
Recently, there has been an upsurge in book censorship. A report by PEN America released in April showed that 138 districts among 32 states had banned books from classrooms and school libraries. The Girls Who Code series were just four books among them. Books are important, especially for young children. The Girls Who Code series aims to expose and educate young girls about coding and allows them to decide if they want to pursue it. Although the ban only took place for a couple of months, the damage has already been done. Banning books will not benefit anyone, especially if those books are pioneering ways to expose girls to the STEM field.
Works Cited
Aratani, Lauren. “Pennsylvania School District Accused of Banning Girls Who Code Book Series.” The Guardian, 26 Sept. 2022. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/26/pennsylvania-book-ban-girls-who-code.
