Book Review: Secret Coders by Gene Luen Yang et al.

Secret Coders by Gene Luen Yang and Mike Holmes

12 year old girl Hopper has to go to a new school. She wants to fit in but it's a weird place. The main building looks like a haunted house and has the number nine all over it. Another building is padlocked shut. Creepy bird with four eyes perch in the trees. She tries to make friends with three boys but one accidentally gets pudding on her. To make things even, she spits on him. Of course, this is the beginning of their friendship. His name is Eni and he's been going to the school since kindergarten. He's always had the feeling that something is odd about the place. At lunch one of the birds notices Hopper's earrings shaped like the number seven. The bird opens three eyes. Eni thinks he knows what's going on with them. They are expressing numbers in binary code with their eyes (closed, open, open, open). This discovery starts them on the path to unravel the school's mysteries.

The graphic novel is pretty short but a nice introduction to the very basics of binary coding. The book even gives the readers (it seems like it's aimed at 12 year-olds) a chance to do some coding, making it both fun and educational. Sadly, the next book isn't scheduled to come out until August 2016, a very long wait.