I can’t express enough thanks to the children’s-book superstars at Holiday House who helped make Lucy’s story as starry as could be. Margaret Ferguson is the editor every author dreams of, offering the perfect blend of encouragement and unfailingly insightful critique. Raina Putter and John Simko made sharp-eyed corrections I would have otherwise missed. Kerry Martin created a delightful design for the series.
Grace Zong is the most genius-y of all artistic geniuses! I hug myself with joy every time I look at her illustrations and mega-darling covers for all the After-School Superstars titles.
My superstar agent, Stephen Fraser, has cheered me on for book after book; his steadfast support means so much to me. Writer friends offered critique on crucial drafts: heartfelt thanks to the Writing Roosters (Tracy Abell, Vanessa Appleby, Jennifer Bertman, Laura Perdew, and Jennifer Sims), and to Leslie O’Kane. I am also beyond grateful to three elementary school teachers for reading the manuscript and providing feedback on the coding instruction—Amy Glendinning, Clarice Howe-Johnson, and Megan Watkins—as well as young coding guru Quinn Reynolds. Of course, any errors that remain are my responsibility alone.
Megan Watkins allowed me to sit in on her coding workshops at Stott Elementary in Arvarda, Colorado, and Stephanie Winiecki welcomed me to her after-school computer club at Boulder Country Day School. I learned so much from both of these stunningly talented teachers. Some of the coding activities for Lucy’s camp were inspired by the extremely helpful book Helping Kids with Coding for Dummies by Camille McCue and Sarah Guthal. I spent many hours on the Hour of Code website trying out programs myself. Here my computer programmer son, Gregory Wahl, was a great help to his technologically challenged mom.
Most of all, I’m grateful to my unfailingly patient and cheerful eleven-year-old coding tutor, Lorelei Held, who sat next to me for several afternoons showing me how to code a dance party and to draw and animate my own clumsy pictures. I can’t imagine how I could have written the book without her. Thank you, Lorelei!