Blue Avenger Cracks the Code - Hardcover

Howe, Norma

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805063722 ISBN 13: 9780805063721

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2000

Synopsis

"Unless and until someone can convince me otherwise, it's goodbye, Mr. Shakespeare--hello, Oxford!"

Rue is blue as Blue can be. A reporter can't get his name right; the city council is putting bullets back in guns; an unscrupulous software manufacturer has stolen a good friend's plans for a computer game; and worst of all, Omaha Nebraska Brown, the love of his life, has suddenly gone cold. Only setting out on a new quest can right these wrongs.

A wonderful English teacher gives Blue the challenge that sends him to meet a devious merchant in Venice, decode a mysterious cipher, and devote himself to the cause of Edward deVere, the Earl of Oxford (and, Blue is sure, the true and long-hidden author of the greatest plays in English). After desperate measures to avoid being alone in a gondola under the moon with a beautiful girl, true Blue returns to Omaha's waiting arms, and he finds a clever way for his friend to get credit for his inventions. But whether he can prove Oxford really wrote Shakespeare's plays is up to the reader.

Blue Avenger Cracks the Code is a great stand-alone book that will please Blue lovers grateful to see him back in action, and will give teachers and parents a whole new way to interest young readers in Shakespeare.

About this title

About the Author

Norma Howe is the author of The Adventures of Blue Avenger, which received starred reviews from Kirkus, School Library Journal and Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. Bulletin named it one of its Blue Ribbon choices. Ms. Howe lives with her husband in Sacramento, California. They have five grown children.

Reviews

Grade 7 Up-The high school junior/superhero is off and running again in this sequel to The Adventures of Blue Avenger (Holt, 1999). After Blue's successful efforts to reunite his girlfriend, Omaha, with her renegade father end in bitter disappointment, he finds it hard to pin the disillusioned girl down to commit to their relationship. Bored and depressed, the teen turns his energies to a new cause: his English teacher's belief that perhaps Shakespeare was not the true author of all of his works. On a trip to Venice with friends, Blue encounters more problems as his faithfulness to Omaha is put to the test and a seedy bookseller takes advantage of them, but his conviction that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true Bard is only strengthened. As the book comes to an end, the many threads of Howe's story come together. The plot development is skillful, the pace fast, and the characters colorful and realistic. The mood is comic, but also tragic, as Blue struggles to find purpose and love. Readers will find romance, mystery, and literary intrigue in this funny book about a boy with many causes.
Barbara Jo McKee, Streetsboro Senior High, OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Less philosophical than The Adventures of Blue Avenger, this sequel is just as eccentric and intellectually engaging and very nearly as much fun. In her breezy, iconoclastic style, Howe begins with a hyperbolic note that brings newcomers up to speed even as it throws down the gauntlet: "Now that we've smoked out the bubble heads and goof-offs who think the highest praise they can give a book is I finished it in one day!Anow that we understand each other, we can get on with the adventures at hand." Persuaded by his English teacher that the author of the plays attributed to Shakespeare is instead Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, Blue quickly sets to work decoding Elizabethan anagrams and ciphers, and starts compiling a Shakespeare Mystery Notebook. A trip with his friends to Venice gives him an unparalleled opportunity to test his detective skillsAhe overhears a shady antiquarian and a furtive Englishman (possibly someone "dependent on the continued prosperity of a certain multi-billion-dollar tourist industry") discussing a manuscript in which de Vere (who visited Venice in 1575) mentions Verona's Romeo and Giulietta. Howe makes a virtue out of implausibility by demanding readers' ironic laughter: "That [scenario] is beyond comic books! That is pure Hollywood!" While the narrative is uneven in its techniques (e.g., Howe's cross-cutting slows down once Blue is in Venice), the scale is a grand oneAhere is a comic novel unafraid to challenge its audience. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805063722
• ISBN 13: 9780805063721
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296