Secret Coders (Secret Coders #1)

by Gene Luen Yang (Author) Mike Holmes (Illustrator)

Reading Level: 4th − 5th Grade
Series: Secret Coders
"Welcome to Stately Academy, a school which is just crawling with mysteries to be solved! The founder of the school left many clues and puzzles to challenge his enterprising students. Using their wits and their growing prowess with coding, Hopper and her friend Eni are going to solve the mystery of Stately Academy no matter what it takes!" --
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Convincing kids that coding "truly is magic" is Yang's and Holmes's agenda here, and their series opener certainly does the trick.

School Library Journal

Gr 4-8--A mysterious school, transition to mastery, and an exciting new language run through this excellent new graphic novel. But it's not magic wands that dictate the new characters' skills --it's coding. Hopper, an enthusiastic 12-year-old girl (named after programmer Grace Hopper), has just started school at the creepy Stately Academy. After getting in a fight that involves "lung pudding" (a loogie!) with Eni (based on NBA star Chris Bosh), Hopper and Eni become friends while unraveling the secrets of the school. Robotic birds, family troubles, and sinister, child-hating school administrators lead to a story both emotionally rich and rife with learning opportunities. Readers will feel themselves thinking in a new way as they watch Hopper and Eni transform into coders on a mission, but the story never feels pedantic. The graphic novel format is effective and will appeal to everyone from computer lovers to reluctant readers to mystery fans. The black and green art is effective and straightforward, and the pacing of the panels is excellent. The book is important in light of issues of diversity in the computer programming world; Hopper is biracial, and Eni is African American, and both have multiple dimensions to their characters (they are more than just computer nerds). This first volume ends on a cliff-hanger with real life magic: the magic of coding made accessible. VERDICT An excellent first purchase that introduces readers to the power of computer programming through an engaging graphic mystery.--Lisa Nowlain, Darien Library, CT

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

ALA/Booklist

Yang and Holmes do such a great job explaining the concepts that even programming newbies will be likely to catch on. A cliff-hanger ending hints at deepening mysteries to come.

Review quotes

"Gene Luen Yang's talent is prodigious, his enthusiasm contagious....Even this confirmed technophobe was ready to learn coding." —Katherine Applegate, author of Crenshaw and The One and Only Ivan
"Gene Yang brings computer coding to life." —Entertainment Weekly

"Secret Coders not only uses Logo but also touches on computer fundamentals like binary code and the three major ways that code is organized: sequence, iteration, and selection. By the end of Secret Coders, readers will learn them all, right alongside Hopper and Eni, not as something dry or rote, but something transformative." —Wired

Gene Luen Yang
Gene Luen Yang writes, and sometimes draws, comic books and graphic novels. As the Library of Congress's fifth National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, he advocates for the importance of reading, especially reading diversely. His graphic novel American Born Chinese, a National Book Award finalist and Printz Award winner, has been adapted into a streaming series on Disney+. His two-volume graphic novel Boxers & Saints won the LA Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award finalist. His nonfiction graphic novel Dragon Hoops received an Eisner Award and a Printz honor. His other comics works include Secret Coders (with Mike Holmes), The Shadow Hero (with Sonny Liew), as well as Superman Smashes the Klan and the Avatar: The Last Airbender series (both with Gurihiru). In 2016, he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781626722767
Lexile Measure
380
Guided Reading Level
V
Publisher
First Second
Publication date
September 20, 2015
Series
Secret Coders
BISAC categories
JUV036000 - Juvenile Fiction | Science & Technology
JUV008000 - Juvenile Fiction | Comics & Graphic Novels | General
JUV035000 - Juvenile Fiction | School & Education
JUV049000 - Juvenile Fiction | Computers & Digital Media
Library of Congress categories
-
Cybils
Finalist 2015 - 2015

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