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What is Ara the Star Engineer?

Ara the Star Engineer is an ebook (electronic book). It’s a book you can read on any device (a computer, tablet or phone). It’s about a young girl who has many questions. She learns how to use technology, intelligence and teamwork to answer these questions.

Who is Ara? What is DeeDee?

Ara is a young girl who loves BIG numbers. She wants to count all the stars in the sky… but how? DeeDee is her robot friend. Read the book to learn more about them.

How do I get the ebook?

You can get Ara the Star Engineer from Amazon.

  1. Go to the Ara the Star Engineer page for Kindle on Amazon
  2. Click Buy now with 1-Click
  3. Get the Amazon Kindle app for your device
  4. Open the Amazon Kindle app
  5. Read Ara the Star Engineer

What should I do after I finish reading the book?

Go to the Adventures of Ara website. You can print the activity sheets and learn more about technology. Don’t forget to read the glossary and Ara’s notebook. They’re in the back of the book.

A note from Komal Singh. She’s the author.

Dear parents and mentors,

I’m a techie by day and a storyteller mom by night–someone who loves coding and cupcakes, data crunching and daydreaming. The idea for this book was born when my daughter proclaimed, at age 4, “Engineers are boys.” This left me stunned.

Having plotted my own journey as a woman in tech, this revalidated for me that representation is imperative. Research shows girls start doubting their STEM intelligence (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) by the time they are six years old. The innocuous repartee I often hear is, “Well, it’s because girls are simply not interested in STEM functions.” But that’s not true. Most girls aren’t provided an opportunity to be interested in STEM in the first place. Storybooks and media offer a marginal spotlight on women role models for young girls to relate to and aspire to be. This, combined with our unconscious biases, tends to make girls believe excelling in STEM is an innate ability rather than an acquired quality. Yet, some of the very first pioneers in computer science have been women. Only when PCs were marketed in the 1980s as toys for boys and men did we start seeing a massive drop in the number of women in computer science.

I hope you will use this book as a tool to relevel STEM playing fields. To inspire beautiful minds of all genders, young and old. To meet women engineer trailblazers of diverse color and background who are using and solving some of the biggest problems in computing today! This story introduces computer science concepts in a playful manner that can be further explored through learning resources in the accompanying notebook and book the web site, www.adventuresofara.com.

Read together, learn, wonder–and stop and gawk at the data center.

Komal Singh