The Math Kids: An Encrypted Clue
The Math Kids: An Encrypted Clue
Stephanie Lewis squinted at the tiny handwriting in the margin of the book. At first, it looked like someone had just been doodling. When she put her nose almost to the page, however, she could just make out the tiny writing.
The strange symbols didn’t mean anything to her, but she carefully copied them into her notebook anyway.
Stephanie had spent the afternoon at the library working on a social studies project. Her family had moved into the area at the beginning of the school year, so the project to track the history of Maynard was helping her learn about her new town. The paper only had to be three pages long, but Stephanie had already collected almost seven pages of notes. The latest book she was studying, A Short History of Maynard, was anything but short. It was almost four hundred pages long. It was on page 213 that Stephanie found the cryptic note.
Maynard, like most small towns anywhere, doesn’t really have enough history to fill four hundred pages, but it still has enough stories to be interesting. It was founded in 1874 by Herbert Maynard. Herbert was the first mayor of the town, which in the beginning consisted primarily of other Maynards. The extended family had made its living mining the veins of rich, black coal from the caves just north of town. By the early 1900s, the town had grown to almost a thousand people, and Herbert Maynard had grown very wealthy. He built a sprawling mansion on the tallest hill overlooking the town and less than a football fields from the entrance to the caves that had given his family, and the town, its start. But he only got to enjoy two short years in his new home as he and his wife, Olivia, were struck down with yellow fever in 1904 and died just days apart in their master bedroom. They were not to be the only ones to die in the mansion.
The Math Kids are busy preparing for the district math tournament when Stephanie finds a cryptic message in a history book about her new home, Maynard. She is working on an essay assignment that covers the history of the area. She shows this message to the other three members of the club, Catherine, Justin and Jordan, and they soon become involved in finding the message hidden in this code. Luckily, Justin knows what kind of code it is: a pigpen cipher.
Knowing how to solve the cipher only leads to another problem. The message said, “You’ll find what you seek under a chair in the library.” There are so many chairs to check, and, in the end, the clue is not found. Maynard is a small town, and so how many other libraries can there be? But there is another library, and it is in the old Maynard mansion on the hill. Only tours are allowed in the mansion, and, since those tours do not go into the library, the kids must think of a way to sneak into it while on a tour. Stephanie sneaks in to find a new cipher, but she is scared to death that she will get caught. The new cipher only adds more questions, but, using logic and their math skills, the quartet continue to work on it.
In the meantime, town hall meetings are happening because the town needs funds to continue operating and that includes the school. The math tournament will not be held, leaving the kids extremely disappointed. However, their minds are on their new challenge. Each time they solve a new cipher, there are more questions which lead to more information which leads to more questions. But they definitely don’t give up because there is much more to learn about who left the ciphers and why.
As with the other “Math Kids” books, author David Cole has left readers with a novel that will keep them wondering until the very end. The Math Kids: An Encrypted Clue is full of interesting fact and figures, problems and interesting historical notes. Children can try to solve the problems along with the Math Kids as they attempt to solve this mystery. The Appendix contains solutions to questions and problems presented throughout the story as readers follow the kids. While their success is assured, the journey is remarkably interesting.
And I just have to say that these books are as interesting for adults as they are for children. If you have not already found the value and the mysteries in mathematics, just read these novels to your children.
Elaine Fuhr, a retired elementary and middle school teacher, lives in Alberta.