Secret Coders: Paths & Portals, succeeds as a graphic novel and STEM tool

Secret Coders: Paths & Portals is the second book in the series by Gene Luen Yang and Mike Holmes. It’s a fascinating graphic novel that wears its love for STEM on its sleeve. It also manages to do so in a way that draws in non-coders in a way that will make them want to explore the subject matter more.

That’s important to point out because this is a graphic novel, but it’s unlike any one that you’ve read before.  Most graphic novels simply have the goal of being entertaining. Paths & Portals wants to be entertaining, as well as, show kids what coding can do, how it’s helpful and why it’s fun.

The book opens up right where the first one ended, with Eni, Josh, Hopper trapped in a room. To open the door on the other side of the room they must solve a puzzle. They need to get a computer turtle to trace the shape of a hexagon. Mr. Bee is overseeing the challenge and Josh has plugged in what he thinks will be the correct code to make it happen.  Unfortunately Josh wrote some poor code and our turtle does not finish mapping the shape.

Hopper thinks she realizes where he made his mistake and writes her own code with is successful. The door opens and leads them to a room with a variety of large robot turtle that can execute code just like their little guy. There is also a sheet of paper on the wall with all sorts of primitive commands. Mr. Bee then finds a sheet of paper that one his students wrote that programs the turtles to create a piece of art.  Some of the kids catch on to the fact that Mr. Bee used to have students and very well might be more than they think he is.

From here the kids go home where they find out that coding and robots can assist with things at home too, like helping them write Mandarin. They also get picked on just a bit from the school rugby team, have a little internal strife and learn that the things their parents try to teach them actually does have a purpose.

At a couple points in the book the reader is invited to complete the coding challenge that’s in from of our characters. To those that don’t know coding (like me) it sounds wonky and something that drives the fun out of a graphic novel that should be enjoyable. However, the challenges are presented in such a manner that you want to ‘help’ the character finish them. The book doesn’t water down the mental blocks that come with coding either.

The characters are in a tough spot and are genuinely seeking assistance. Sometimes their friends help and other times the book pauses just enough to let you complete the pattern. Pattern. That’s all coding is, it’s the process of making a machine do something that we tell it to do by a series of word, numbers or commands.

With all of this talk about coding one might think that Secret Coders: Paths & Portals is only for the STEM wonks. It is not. First and foremost it’s a graphic novel. There are funny moments, real instances that middle school kids can relate to and art that any kids that reads comic books will enjoy. It’s simply a STEM based graphic novel that has computer coding as its central plot device-and kids who are open to technology will love it. The content in the vocabulary is good for any age, but those 9 and up will be able to read it on their own, understand the book and get the most out of it.