Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing

The author's upbeat, positive tone is refreshing and his enthusiasm about his topic is contagious. -- School Library Journal (starred review)

Pssst Do you know the difference between a code and a cipher? Can you tell a St. Cyr slide from a Cardano grille? Did you know that the discovery of a substitution cipher caused Mary Queen of Scots to lose her head? Don't look now, but packed into this practical field guide is everything a young person needs to know about the art of concealment -- making and breaking codes, mastering cipher systems, and experimenting with secret writing. Offering plenty of hands-on practice sessions, tips for creating a code-making kit, sidebars on secret codes in history, and an amusing pair of spies to illustrate techniques, Paul B. Janeczko's tantalizing Top Secret won't stay a secret for long. Back matter includes suggestions for further reading, an author's note, an answer key, and an index.

Author: Paul B. Janeczko
Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
Published: 04/11/2006
Pages: 136
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.90h x 7.00w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9780763629724
Audience: Ages 9-12

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 7.3
Point Value: 3
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 74915 / Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers, and Secret Writing

About the Author
Paul B. Janeczko (1945-2019) was a poet and teacher who edited numerous award-winning poetry anthologies for young people, including A Poke in the I, A Kick in the Head, A Foot in the Mouth, and The Death of the Hat, all of which were illustrated by Chris Raschka; Firefly July, illustrated by Melissa Sweet; and The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems, illustrated by Richard Jones. He also wrote Worlds Afire; Requiem: Poems of the Terezín Ghetto; Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers, and Secret Writing; Double Cross: Deception Techniques in War; The Dark Game: True Spy Stories from Invisible Ink to CIA Moles, a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults; and Secret Soldiers: How the U.S. Twenty-Third Special Troops Fooled the Nazis.

Jenna LaReau is a graduate of the Parsons School of Design in New York. Top Secret is her first book with Candlewick Press. She lives in Massachusetts, where she works as an illustrator and designer.

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