The Secret of the Skeleton Key (The Code Busters Club Series #1)

by Penny Warner

Overview

Cody, Quinn, Luke, and M.E. may not have much in common with each other, but they do love playing around with codes. In fact, they love codes so much, they have their own private club, with a super-secret hideout and passwords that change every single day. When Cody and Quinn notice what could be a code on the window of their neighbor's house—the neighbor they call Skeleton Man—the club gets to work. And it is a cry for help! Now the Code Busters are on the case—and nothing will stop them from solving the mystery and finding the secret treasure that seems to be the cause of it all! This exciting interactive mystery offers more than fifteen codes for you to decipher, including the Consonant code, Morse code, and American Sign Language. Test your brain with the Code Busters and solve the mystery along with them. Answers are in the back, if you ever get stuck.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781606843901
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/09/2012
Series:	Code Busters Club Series , #1
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	373,756
Product dimensions:	5.42(w) x 7.63(h) x 0.53(d)
Lexile:	710L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Penny Warner has published more than 60 books for both adults and children. She teaches child development at a local college in California. You can join the Code Busters Club at www.codebustersclub.com.

Editorial Reviews

"This clever novel introduces the members of the Code Busters Club—Cody, Quinn, Luke, and M.E.—as they take on the task of solving a mystery surrounding the reclusive Mr. Skelton, whose house catches on fire the night after Cody and Quinn spot him in an upstairs window signaling for help. The foursome begins a seemingly hopeless search for information and end up uncovering a clue hidden behind a framed certificate, which leads them to another, and to another, until finally they piece it all together. Add in a couple of shady distant cousins who keep showing up wherever the club members are, rumors of large amounts of money hidden in the house, and the tremendous likability of kids gifted with decoding and detection skills and you've got a great story and a solid setup for a series. Throughout the narrative, clues and information are presented in code and cipher—Morse code, American Sign Language fingerspelling, semaphores, Braille, Caesar's cipher—and readers are invited to decode the statements and check the back of the book for the answer. This serves to add interest for a whole new crowd of readers who will find the interactive element very appealing. The villains are deeply villainous, the heroes remarkably heroic, and the plot, while a bit of a stretch, is a whole lot of fun. The final pages point to a second installment set on Alcatraz Island; expect requests upon return of this volume." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

Gr 3–5—This pedestrian mystery involves four kids who form a club based on their mutual enjoyment of riddles, puzzles, and secret codes. When one of their elderly neighbors acts weirdly, the kids realize that he has left a semaphore code on his bedroom window, asking for help. Two cheesy relatives are trying to kill him for his fortune. The children get involved and, by decoding a number of messages, are able to rescue him. Readers may enjoy solving the coded chapter titles as well as those that the children have to figure out. However, there is no character development, and the bad guys are stock figures who are more laughable than sinister. Most readers will find the solution to the mystery ridiculously obvious.—B. Allison Gray, Goleta Public Library, CA

School Library Journal

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