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Hollowspine

I'm Reading Comeeks

I dedicate this blog to comics in all forms, manga, autobio, superhero, art books, etc.  And of course, since I need a challenge, I've decided that I'll read and write (short) reviews for 365 comics during 2015.

I'm Learning!

Secret Coders - Gene Luen Yang, Mike Holmes

And I'm still having fun!  What is this?  Magic!?

 

When Hopper moves to a new school, she's not too impressed by it.  The place is run down, there are weird numbers all around and locks on the doors.  Plus, even with her most charming grin she hasn't made any friends.

 

When she wears her lucky seven earrings (for her number on her old school's basketball team) however she discovers a secret world.  The creepy birds around the school respond to secret number codes and the sevens on her earrings lead star basketball player Eni to discover one of the secrets.

 

Eni and Hopper become friends as they solve codes around the school and get into a fair bit of trouble while they're at it.

 

The story is fun, I liked that the characters aren't typical cardboard kiddie cutouts, it's a diverse (in multiple ways) cast.  I also really enjoyed that the authors included puzzles for the readers to solve.  The first puzzle was pretty easy as well, which is great, encouraging kids by showing them that coding can be fun and easy rather than boring and difficult, which is, I think, how many kids would view computer programming.  

 

Here's me solving the code, check out the book to crack the code yourself!