Review: Paths and Portals (Secret Coders, #2)

Title: Paths and Portals (Secret Coders, #2)
Author: Gene Luen Yang, and Mike Holmes
Genre: Middle Grade, Graphic Novel
Publisher: First Second
Source: Library
Release Date: August 30, 2016
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Gene Luen Yang is the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

There’s something lurking beneath the surface of Stately Academy—literally. In a secret underground classroom Hopper, Eni, and Josh discover that the campus was once home to the Bee School, an institute where teachers, students, and robots worked together to unravel the mysteries of coding. Hopper and her friends are eager to follow in this tradition and become top-rate coders. But why are Principal Dean and the rugby team suddenly so interested in their extracurricular activities?

From graphic novel superstar (and high school computer programming teacher) Gene Luen Yang comes the second volume of Secret Coders, Paths & Portals, a wildly entertaining new series that combines logic puzzles and basic programming instruction with a page-turning mystery plot!

Review:

This story begins right where the first story ended.

The kids have to figure out the challenge that Professor Bee gave them. He gave them the challenge at the end of the last book and this one begins with them solving it. The only problem with this is that the reader may have forgotten the very end of the last book. This one ended the same way, with a cliffhanger. If you don’t have access to the book or if you read the previous one a long time ago, it could be a problem.

I liked the way coding was incorporated into this story. The characters gave tasks for the reader to figure out along with them. The kids in the story had to figure out how to make the robots do certain tasks by typing in a list of instructions. This is a good way for kids to learn simple coding.

I enjoyed this book, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

Author: jilljemmett

Jill lives in Toronto, Canada. She has studied English, Creative Writing, and Publishing. Jill is the creator and content producer of Jill’s Book Blog, where she has published a blog post every day for the last four years, including 5-7 book reviews a week. She can usually be found with her nose in a book. View all posts by jilljemmett