Asha and Baz Meet Elizebeth Friedman

Once again, Asha and her best friend Baz are engaged in a class challenge. This time, their teacher, Ms. Wilson, has assigned the Codebreaker Challenge which asks them to find the answer to the question, “How do you write a secret message without using invisible ink?” This challenge involves science, history, engineering, math, and solving puzzles. The teacher gives them several potential codebreaking replacements: letters with numbers, letters with symbols, different alphabets, or letters with dots and dashes. Ms. Wilson reminds them that they use secret codes every day when they use passwords for their computers or their bank cards. She gives them a letter/number key to decode the secret message.

As they have done in previous challenges, Asha and Baz use their magic stick to find a solution to the puzzle they are asked to solve. In Asha and Baz Meet Mary Sherman Morgan, they visited Mary Sherman Morgan in 1957 to find out about rockets, and, in Asha and Baz Meet Hedy Lamarr, it was Hedy Lamar in 1941 to solve a coding puzzle. They ask the magic stick to take them to a Codebreaker and find Elizebeth Friedman in 1942. They are at her home in Washington, D.C. where they pose as new trainees to help her with codebreaking. They ask her why she is at home, and she replies, “Since I had my family, I’ve been working from home.” (p. 17)

Elizebeth is fascinated with codes and has been working on one code for weeks – TOP SECRET ULTRA. The United States joined World War II in 1941, and Elizebeth worked to help the war effort by breaking Nazi codes. They work together to break the ULTRA code and discover that the Germans want to target the Queen Mary which has been taking troops and supplies to war ravaged England. Their work can save a lot of people from certain death!

Elizebeth is an intuitive and resourceful codebreaker. She tells Asha and Baz that “Codebreaking also requires logic, asking the right questions, and spotting patterns.” (p. 26) She enjoys the challenge of putting the pieces of the puzzle together to break the code and reveal the enemy’s plans. Elizebeth has been breaking codes since World War I when she worked for the U. S. Navy. She tells Asha and Baz that she is dedicated to her task: “I want to solve codes and make a difference in the world.” (p. 28)

Asha and Baz Meet Elizebeth Friedman is the third book in the series from Common Deer Press. Previous books have explored other scientific areas such as rocket science and frequency hopping. This novel focuses on codebreaking to help with the war effort against the Germans in World War II. Once again, readers who enjoy time travel, science, mathematics, and history will be intrigued. The illustrator, Dharmali Patel, uses black and white drawings to give readers additional information about the events in the novel.

The accessible text and short chapters will make this book appealing to a wide variety of readers – both male and female. There are several topics addressed in this novel, including: codebreaking, World War II, the Queen Mary, empathy, patriotism, spy craft, shyness, and determination. The Appendix gives readers additional information about the life and accomplishments of Elizebeth Friedman as well as information about a variety of codes. Asha and Baz Meet Elizebeth Friedman addresses STEM topics in an interesting and accessible format.