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!

From graphic novel superstar (and high school computer programming teacher) Gene Luen Yang comes a wildly entertaining new series that combines logic puzzles and basic programming instruction with a page-turning mystery plot!

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

review:

When I first saw that Secret Coders by Gene Luen Yang is a  STEM-based comic series that featured coding, I knew that it had the potential to be right fit for my family. The very second we unpackaged this book, my 10-year-old boy picked it up, read it, and declared that he LOVED it. He said THIS IS SO GOOD! and then moved immediately to the second book in the series. As a mom, that is exactly the thing that I want for my kids, no matter what the book: I want to see them excited about what they’re reading, period. When I see that it has great content and that they continue with the reading, I know that this is something that I will put my support behind and recommend to other parents and to schools out there. 

I personally loved Secret Coders too! Hopper is new to Stately Academy, but she doesn’t love it. It’s weird and creepy. Along with her friend Eni, Hopper realizes that all of these weird things are actually clues to something else. Using binary and coding, these two friends solve clue after clue to figure out the secrets behind this unusual school. Along the way, the book pauses here and there to see if readers can use the skills they’ve been taught by the characters. It is not boring. It does not read like a textbook. This isn’t dry reading. It’s actually fun and I was able to learn these concepts (which I had previous found a bit complicated) along with my kids (who did not find them complicated at all). The book presents them in a way that pretty much anyone can understand, with a story that is fun and engaging characters. I love Hopper and Eni – the way they have fun guy-girl-friendship banter just like young people do. There is no romance here, just fun friendship, which is completely appropriate for this type of story and book.

When both Jack and I reached the end, we IMMEDIATELY put the book down and grabbed the second book. We both believe that readers will be invested enough in Secret Coders to do the same.

There's something lurking beneath the surface of Stately Academy—literally. In a secret underground classroom Hopper, Eni, and Josh discover that the campus was once home to the Bee School, an institute where teachers, students, and robots worked together to unravel the mysteries of coding. Hopper and her friends are eager to follow in this tradition and become top-rate coders. But why are Principal Dean and the rugby team suddenly so interested in their extracurricular activities?

From graphic novel superstar (and high school computer programming teacher) Gene Luen Yang comes the second volume of Secret Coders, Paths & Portals, a wildly entertaining new series that combines logic puzzles and basic programming instruction with a page-turning mystery plot!

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review:

Secret Coders: Paths & Portals picks up immediately after the end of the first book. Hopper and Eni – along with their friend Josh – are still solving clues around the very odd Stately Academy. They’re now working along with the school janitor, Mr. Bee. In the first book, we thought Mr. Bee was just a mean old member of the school staff, but in this installment, we find out that there is actually way more to Mr. Bee’s story! There is also way more going on at, er, under Stately Academy. This time the friends are using Logo computer programming to work through some tricky situations.

For me, computer programming and coding is tough. I’ve always avoided it! But my 10-year-old loves it. He loved this book and had no trouble at all with the coding used here. The great thing is that: I could do it too! So: once again, I believe that the creators of this series have broken down something that has the potential to be complicated (like binary)…and they’ve made it accessible to everyone, all ages, and even people of all interests.

I believe that this is probably their mission with incorporating STEM into these comic books. And I love it. The story and these characters are fun and have engaging relationships that young kids will relate to, and by reading these books the kids are adding STEM into their reading without making it a big deal. I love that.

Highly recommended. Jack and I (and my girls, by the way) are eagerly anticipating the release of the next book in early 2017 and will continue with this series as far as it goes.

Every volume of Science Comics offers a complete introduction to a particular topic--dinosaurs, coral reefs, the solar system, volcanoes, bats, flying machines, and more. These gorgeously illustrated graphic novels offer wildly entertaining views of their subjects. Whether you're a fourth grader doing a natural science unit at school or a thirty-year-old with a secret passion for airplanes, these books are for you!

This volume: in Dinosaurs, learn all about the history of paleontology! This fascinating look at dinosaur science covers the last 150 years of dinosaur hunting, and illuminates how our ideas about dinosaurs have changed--and continue to change.

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review:

This book really surprised me! In looking at this cover, I expected an interesting dinosaur book. Who doesn’t love dinosaurs, right? But when I looked inside, I was floored. Not only is the art beautiful and interesting to look at on every single page, but there is so much information in this book. The book is written in a linear fashion, bringing readers up-to-date on the discovery of dinosaur skeletons and the documentation of fossils by scientists (and also by regular people in the early days, before they even knew what they were discovering exactly). There is humor as well as history in this book, and it made me laugh to read how the discovery of dinosaurs unfolded. There is some background on notable paleontologists, which is interesting. There are also quite a few very cool charts, like a representation of the different eras, how a cat is related to a bird, how the different dinosaurs are related to one another, a representation of Marsh’s discoveries vs. Cope’s discoveries – and several more. The pages are colorful and shiny, the art is beautiful, and I found myself looking at each page for A LONG TIME. It took me a while to go through this book.

The thing about this book is: I think younger readers will flip through or read and love the book and be very satisfied while they learn some things. And I believe that they’ll return to this book over and over. But I also believe that older readers will take this same book and spend more time on it because it is written in a way that the ones that have an interest in paleontology and dinosaurs will study everything on every page, and they’ll refer back to the pages before it, and they’ll think back on the things that they know, and they’ll discuss with other people the things that they find in this book. At least, that is my own experience with reading this book with my family. I have twin 13-year-old daughters that eat, breathe, and sleep dinosaurs and are wildly interested in paleontology, to the point of potentially pursuing a career in this field one day. We, as a family, know a few things about what is written in this book because we’ve studied it so much. But at the same time, we learned so much here too! I think that my girls initially thought that the book was for younger readers when they saw the cover, but realized upon opening it that this book is for older readers as well.

This book is highly recommended, and this is another series that we will be following up on and reading in its entirety. Without a doubt this is a STEM book and it is incredibly cool. I think that young people (and big kids like myself) will flock to it if given the chance and if they realize that it is written for a broad spectrum of ages.

 

As a family of homeschoolers, we are all about STEM in the books that we read and we love incorporating these types of media into our schooling. I want these books on my bookshelf. But honestly, I’m not always aware of them! I’m so excited to have found out about Gene Luen Yang’s Reading Without Walls Challenge and his love of STEM + comics. Both STEM and comics are topics that are big, huge deals in my home as my daughters are graphic artists and comic designers, and as my son is planning a STEM-related career. We know that these topics are huge in so many other homes as well, and we know that they will be as more homes find out about STEM and what it can do for them and society and community and culture as a whole. We are excited about what Gen Luen Yang is doing here and are thrilled to be a small part of promoting these platforms. To see a list of some great STEM-inclusive comics, click here. You can also check out the Reading Without Walls Blog Tour on these websites and dates:

 

August 31: Colby at Sharp Read

September 1: Jess at Reading Nook Reviews

September 2: Samantha at Forest of Words and Pages

September 5: Jennifer at YA Book Nerd

September 6: Maria at Maria’s Mélange

September 7: Gigi at Late Bloomer’s Book Blog

September 8: Jen at Starry Eyed Revue

September 9: Cheyenne at The Hollow Cupboards

September 12: Anya at On Starships and Dragonwings

September 13: April at Good Books and Good Wine

September 14: Cindy at Charting by the Stars

September 15: Erica at The Book Cellar

September 16: Sandie at Teen Lit Rocks

September 19: Asheley at Into the Hall of Books

September 20: Daphne at Gone Pecan

September 21: Mary Ann at Great Kids Books

September 22: Kathy at The Brain Lair

September 23: Michelle & Leslie at Undeniably (Book) Nerdy

September 26: Laurie at Reader Girls

September 27: Margie at Librarian’s Quest

September 28: Victoria at Art, Books, & Coffee

September 29: Cee at The Novel Hermit

September 30: Amanda at Forever Young Adult

 

We’re holding our breath for more of the books on the list from Gene Luen Yang’s website . As a family and as a group of readers and comic makers, THIS IS OUR JAM. We all – my kids and I – recommend these three titles to readers and schools and classrooms alike.

 

 

About Asheley

Asheley is a Southern girl. She loves Carolina blue skies, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and NC craft beer. She loves all things history but prefers books over everything.

You can find her somewhere in North Carolina, daydreaming about the ocean.

Find Asheley on Litsy @intothehallofbooks!