Emmy in the Key of Code: A Middle Grade Novel in Verse About a New Girl Finding Her Place Through Music and STEM for Children (Ages 8-12) - Softcover

Lucido, Aimee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0358434629 ISBN 13: 9780358434627

Publisher: Versify, 2021

Synopsis

In this innovative middle grade novel, coding and music take center stage as new girl Emmy tries to find her place in a new school. Perfect for fans of the Girls Who Code series and The Crossover.

In a new city, at a new school, twelve-year-old Emmy has never felt more out of tune.

Things start to look up when she takes her first coding class, unexpectedly connecting with the material—and Abigail, a new friend—through a shared language: music. But when Emmy gets bad news about their computer teacher, and finds out Abigail isn’t being entirely honest about their friendship, she feels like her new life is screeching to a halt.

Despite these obstacles, Emmy is determined to prove one thing: that, for the first time ever, she isn’t a wrong note, but a musician in the world’s most beautiful symphony.

Shortlisted for a Trinity Schools Book Award (TSBA) 2023

About this title

About the Author

Aimee Lucido is a crossword maker, trivia writer, and the author of several books for kids, including Emmy in the Key of Code, Recipe for Disaster, and Pasta Pasta Lotsa Pasta. She got her MFA in writing for children and young adults at Hamline University and lives with her husband, daughter, and dog in Irvington, New York. When she’s not making puzzles or writing books, Aimee likes to cook, run, and watch reality TV.

aimeelucido.com

Twitter: @AimeeLucido  

Instagram: @AimeeLucido

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

California Dreaming

      I’d never visited California before we moved here
      but I’d heard about it
      in songs.

      Mom even made a playlist
      and she and Dad sang along
      the whole drive over from Wisconsin
      but even after three days straight of
         Katy Perry
         the Beach Boys
         the Mamas & the Papas
      I still didn’t believe it.
      Why would people here be different
      than anywhere else?

      But now that I’m here
      on the first day of sixth grade at my new school
      the hallway is full of kids
      tapping on cell phones that probably cost more
      than an entire month’s rent
      in our new house.

      Plus
      everyone looks like they just jumped off the cover
      of a magazine.
      Hipster glasses
      jeans where the only holes
      were put there on purpose
      and everyone pulling out a reusable container
      full of weird grains
      that must be their lunch.

      I tug down my Packers hoodie
      because it’s colder here
      than the Beach Boys promised
      and this way no one can see
      that I look nothing like
      the cover of
      a magazine.

      I wish San Francisco
      would go back
      to just being
      a song.

Pretending

      As I walk down the hallway
      I head-hum my favorite walking song.
      Beethoven’s Minuet in G.
         dum dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum

      I move andante
      matching my steps to the beat
         left, and right, and left, and right, and left

      so I can pretend
      I’m not at all sore
      from climbing up the hill in front of the school.
         left, and right, and left, and right, and left

      I can pretend I’ve been hiking it my whole life.
         left, and right, and left, and right, and left

      I can pretend I don’t smell like Wisconsin
      and that I wore the right clothes to school today
      and that I’m going to make tons of friends
      and have an amazing year
         left, and right, and left, and right, and left

      just like everyone else.

Locker Number 538

      Finally I reach my locker
         12 clockwise
         32 counterclockwise
         8 clockwise

         Stuck.

Attempted Duet No. 1

      “Hi, I’m new here. My name is–”

         “That’s my locker.”

Edition details

• Publisher: Versify
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0358434629
• ISBN 13: 9780358434627
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432