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:	9781606842812
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2011
Series:	Code Busters Club Series , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Lexile:	710L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB
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

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

"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