This is a fun read that shares a lot of fascinating facts. It's easy to follow and gets the mind and the creative juices flowing.

I am always looking for middle grade books to recommend to my fifth graders! They will love this one.

As a lifelong lover of cryptography, there was nothing in this book that was particularly new to me, but it was a fascinating inspection of the history and a great introduction for those who are new to the world.

Ciphers and Codes are something I always teach my students. It is has always been hard to put together a small history of the ways they have been used through out time. This book helps compile fun stories of history all the way to the present making for an educational yet really entertaining read.

I love ciphers, codes and puzzles and have ever since I was a young girl. What I didn't know was the history of coding, and it is a fascinating one. Ella Schwartz has put it all together in this book along with some fun and challenging examples that kids can solve and use in their lives. Coded messages are known to have been used over two thousand years ago when the Roman emperor Julius Caesar used the Caesar cipher, which simply substituted one letter for another. Of course, with any code or cipher, the recipient must know the key in order to understand the message. This is a well-written history by an expert in the field of cybersecurity. Today's kids will be interested in what she has to say about computer coding. When I was a classroom teacher, I always taught my kids a few coding basics and we would make a cipher wheel like this one (I've included the template we used below with instructions).

Pair Can You Crack the Code? with Explorer Academy Codebreaking Activity Adventure. Even if your kids aren't into the Explorer Academy series, this is a fun scavenger hunt based on different codes, ciphers, and puzzles.

What a fun book for children. This book is exactly what it says it is and will capture the minds of any curious child. I loved this book more that I thought I would. I think any child could enjoy it and would like to find this in their classroom or library!


The publisher provided an ARC through Netgalley. I have voluntarily decided to read and review, giving my personal opinions and thoughts

SO MUCH FUN!
In this world of technology and coding, this book is a delight to show the history of codes and ciphers, getting back to paper and pencil is refreshing as well. My students will enjoy this title greatly.

Can You Crack the Code? takes readers back to the earliest codes throughout history and invites them to join in not only learning about them, but also how to use them and crack them. Kids interested in code-creaking will love it!

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I enjoyed reading this. An interesting story with fun characters. Well written.

Schwartz introduces a number of different ways that people could hide messages using numbers, switching letters, or even creating machines. Each chapter focuses on one way to create a code and then provides examples for the reader to try. Weaving a bit of fun with history, this is a book I would have devoured as a middle schooler.

Three stars
This book came out March 26
ARC kindly provided by publisher and NetGalley

Fabulous and highly recommended by this teacher who wants more kids to explore the creative side of engineering and problem solving.

This book carries with it good credibility as the author is a modern day code maker. It reads like an authentic resource for middle readers who want to learn more about code making and breaking.

Schwartz keeps it intriguing and involves appealing language without dumbing it down. The text is part history book and part introduction to the logical thinking necessary to create and break codes.

I would've loved this as a young reader and I know so many of my students would devour it, too.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a digital copy of this text. I read and fairly reviewed it without obligation.

At the surface, this book walks the reader through the difference between a code and a cipher. We are given, first, a very simple example of each and then are introduced to increasingly complex types of codes and ciphers with extra emphasis on the latter. That will be interesting to most middle grade readers all on it's own. Then Schwartz introduces cipher wheels and the Enigma machine. It's an important turning point. Enigma taught the world a lot about cryptography and code breaking. And the study of Enigma leads directly into modern encryption. While this is a basic introduction to the concept, it's clear and accessible. I'd recommend it not only to kids with and interest in codes but also to adults who want to start understanding encryption.

I really enjoyed this book about codes - the history, the math and science of it, and the future. It was really cool to see the advances in technology and the discussion of hackers. Reading it as an eBook and ARC had some disadvantages. The puzzles were hard to access and the final product will have a final puzzle to solve which was not available in the ARC. A solid book for kids interested in the topic.

"Can You Crack the Code?" is a children's nonfiction book about how codes have been created and cracked throughout history. The author talked about early ways people used to keep a message hidden and then delved into codes. She talked about ciphers, encryption, and decryption at a level that was easy to understand. She talked about the development of different encryption strategies intended to make it more difficult to break ciphers. There was also trivia about specific ciphers used in the past, especially unsolved cipher messages. She explained older, simpler methods (which the reader can use to create their own coded messages or to decode the messages she puts in the book) as well as modern, complex methods used in cybersecurity. This book is interesting enough for an adult to enjoy while simple enough that child can understand. Overall, I'd recommend this interesting book.

This is such a fun book for kids! I loved learning more about secret codes, hidden messages and more! I can’t wait to share this with my students and then exchange secret messages based on the codes learned in the book! I’d also like to tie in espionage and the importance of encoding messages, and the impact that has now with data encryption and keeping our information safe.

I enjoyed the first part of this book. It gets a little long and wordy later on. I personally love cyphers and puzzles so this is right up my alley. For the right kid, this would be a great book.

Let me just say that the subtitle is not kidding. This books covers codes from the ancient Greeks, through Caesar, Samuel Morse, Alan Turing, and up to the current day. Each chapter discusses the methods used to keep messages secure over the ages - from writing them on paper to be swallowed, sharing special code words, supercomputers using prime numbers to create encryption, and even biometric security. There are activities throughout the book that challenge readers to try their own skills at the various forms of deciphering and code breaking.

Photos of figures like Morse and Turing, as well as devices like cipher disks, the Enigma machine, and Bletchley Park's Bombe (the machine that cracked the Enigma code), add interest and reinforce that these are historical facts. There are also jokes such as, "Why don't Vikings send emails? They prefer Norse Code."

Sidebars provide information on the Code Talkers of WWII, as well as the women and African Americans who served as cryptoanalysts during the war. There is also information on the coded telegrams that Abraham Lincoln used to communicate with the Union Army. Readers may visit https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zooniverse/decoding-the-civil-war to volunteer their help to decode Civil War telegrams and add them to archives.

If you have middle grade readers who are interested in mathematics or codes, this is the next book you need to show them.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It does a nice job of discussing spies and their various codes. As a history buff, I appreciated the historical background! It doesn't stop with all the historical stuff, though. The book also contains information about computers and the encryption codes we use in our own lives (whether we realize it or not!)

It's fairly in-depth and is definitely meant for older children. I even learned a few things!

Fun "Crack the Code" activities are included in many of the examples. This is perfect for anybody who has an interest in spies and codes.

**I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

<i>Can You Crack the Code?</i> by Ella Schwartz is an amazingly fun and informative book about all the ways in which people have encrypted secret messages and codes over the course of the world's history. When I first picked this book up, I wasn't expecting it to be as lengthy or as in depth as it was but I definitely appreciated all the new and really interesting pieces I learned about ciphers and cryptography. Not only does the book seek to tell you about the history, but it also offers the opportunity to learn and decode some secret messages on your own throughout. As this book is intended for children, I can see many having a lot of fun with those sections though it is somewhat difficult and they might need a bit of help to do so.

I always knew that this field was rather in-depth and as I did not have any sort of background knowledge on this particular subject, I was able to learn a great deal while reading this book. The information provided was presented in a fun way and offered a great opportunity to develop one's understanding of how cryptography works and the history behind it from why messages were encoded in the first place to the ways in which people genuinely did crack the code. What was even more interesting is the fact that some coded messages still have yet to be decoded today.

The illustrator, Lily Williams, filled the pages of this book with upbeat and fun drawings of characters and more that really do a fantastic job of catching your eye and keeping your attention. I genuinely appreciated these drawings as they made the experience of reading this book a lot more fun than it might have been if it was simply a text-based deluge of information to shove unceremoniously into your brain.

I'd definitely suggest buying this book for your kiddos, especially if they have an interest in secret messages. Make it fun for them and learn alongside as they do. Write secret messages to each other using the ciphers you learn about in the book, help them create their own cipher. Have fun with it. I know I will when I eventually have kids of my own.

<i>I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. </i>

Can You Crack the Code? is a lovely book for children. It features fun illustrations, splendid historical facts, and easy definitions. It provides a great overview of codes and coding, and the history behind it.

*I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*