Code Girls: Library Resource Guide: Welcome

As its involvement in World War II began, the U.S. government realized it had a severe shortage of code breakers. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy began recruiting women for the work, and ultimately thousands were hired, consisting of up to 70-80 percent of the staff. Many of them were college students or teachers specializing in science, math, or foreign languages. Besides breaking enemy codes, these women tested American codes and did translations. They had to keep the true nature of their jobs from their families, often saying they were doing mundane office work. Mundy's book benefits from the recent declassification of National Security Agency files. Along with memos and reports, she performed interviews with 20 surviving code breakers to tell these unknown wartime heroines' stories. (Bookmarks)

Code Girls tells the story of more than 10,000 women who were recruited to break Axis codes, work that saved countless lives, shortened the war—and pioneered the modern computer and cybersecurity industries. The book was a New York Times best-seller, a Washington Post best-seller, and a Wall Street journal best-seller. It has sold more than 200,000 copies and has been translated into ten languages to date. It received rave reviews in publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, and Studies in Intelligence, which said that “Code Girls pays tribute to an unsung group of patriotic Americans who, more than seven decades later, are just now receiving their due." It has won awards including "Best General Audience Intelligence Book" of 2018 from the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, which said that "Code Girls does for women of that era what Hidden Figures did for African American women of the 1960s and Windtalkers did for the native American code communicators of World War II."
- Author's press kit, available via http://www.lizamundy.com/contact/