Ara the Dream Innovator

Komal Singh

A STEM book for young innovators everywhere, for you are never too small to dream big! This much-anticipated companion to Ara the Star Engineer spotlights the innovation journey, introducing readers to what it takes to start a start-up, and turn ideas into reality.

Ara is a young girl who loves to dream BIG. Many of her amazing ideas come to her in her dreams. So Ara builds a Dream Decoder to capture them. But other kids have big dreams too. What about them? With help from her entrepreneur-mentors and her droid DeeDee (who dreams of—beep! beep!—BIG ice creams), Ara embarks on a quest to make her Dream Decoder FTW—For The World! First stop: a hackathon to find a diverse team of fellow thinkers and tinkerers. Then—fingers crossed—they’ll earn a spot at an Accelerator where, with tweaks and testing, they can make the Dream Decoder work for all kids.

A story about inclusive innovation, and making your dreams come true!

Reviews

Praise for the Ara series

“‘If she can see it, she can be it.’ With this story, girls can see leaders and be inspired to become one. A book for all ages and genders!”

Geena Davis founder and chair, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

“Ara and her friends are more than just characters; they are models for girls and boys to follow, if they are curious about the world—and want to build a better one.”

Eric Schmidt former executive chairman and CEO of Google

“Ara’s story can inspire a whole new generation of girls to become engineers, coders, or computer scientists. Our world needs more girls like Ara.”

Hadi Partovi CEO of Code.org

“Stories help us understand ourselves, each other, and the world around us. In a more and more technical world we need stories like Ara’s to help us bring up the next generation of problem solvers.”

Linda Liukas author of Hello Ruby series

“The world needs more girls in tech and curious, young Ara provides a delightful entry point. This book is a beautifully illustrated adventure highlighting diverse, real-life engineer role models sure to inspire future STEM stars.”

Debra Sterling CEO of GoldieBlox

“This book is beautifully drawn and supports a great cause! It is so important to encourage our young girls to become leaders in STEM fields—and this book does just that. A great bedtime story for any little engineer-to-be.”

Rachel Ignotofsky author of Women in Science and Women in Sports

LESS

KOMAL SINGH is a techie by day and a storyteller mom by night—one who loves coding and cupcakes, data crunching and day dreaming, pottery making and program planning. She was inspired to write the Ara series when a hypothesis put forth by her four-year-old daughter stunned her: “Engineers are boys.” Komal is passionate about using technology as an enabler and an equalizer for all. She takes part in kids’ coding clubs, sits on hackathon judge panels, and volunteers with non-profits on technology development. Komal grew up in India and studied computer science at Delhi University and later moved to Canada to complete her master’s degree in the same field from Simon Fraser University. She has worked as a software engineer with tech consulting firms and is currently an engineering program manager at Google. Komal lives in Waterloo, Canada, with her husband and two little kids.

ISBN 978-1-989603-59-8
$19.95 CAD • $15.95 USD
Published March 9, 2021

10 × 10 • 48 Pages
Hardcover, ebook