Secret Code Book

Features

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 64 pages
• Published by: Dial
• Edition: 1st Edition June 1, 1995
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0803717253
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0803717251
• Book Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 20 inches
• Weighs: 11 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
Move over, Mata Hari. Watch your back, Mr. le Carre. Espionage is alive and well-make that "xjiok xbg qkjj," in the coded language known to master spies and the readers of Huckle's ingenious book. More than twenty codes are clearly presented, from Pig Latin (everyway ildchay owsknay isthay) to Morse code (with its 1920s offshoot, the ACME code) and the ancient Greek Polybius square, a "substitution cipher" in which each letter is represented by a pair of numbers. Double agents in particular will want to try Superenciphering, "using two codes or ciphers together [which] makes your secret message even more difficult to break." Among the more unusual entries are the high-seas code, using flags, developed by the British Royal Navy in the 18th century and still practiced; and a grille with punch-out squares, originated by a 16th-century Italian mathemetician, that reveals a hidden message when placed over an innocuous-looking text. Two press-out "code-busters" are included. A handsome design places solid-color borders around clean white pages; instructional photographs and art reproductions add, er, intrigue. Ages 8-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 3^-6. This well-designed book features one-to four-page sections explaining 19 codes, many of them significant in history, as well as methods for encoding and deciphering messages using the codes. Full-color photographs, diagrams, and reproductions of period artwork and documents illustrate the text. From ciphers used by Julius Caesar, Benedict Arnold, and Thomas Jefferson to Morse code, semaphores, and pig latin, the codes will intrigue and challenge readers. Tipped into the back endcovers is a heavy paper sheet with press-out pieces for making two cipher disks. Although these will quickly disappear, making the two unillustrated pages on cipher disks hard to follow, libraries will still find the book a useful purchase. Carolyn Phelan