Blue Avenger Cracks the Code: **Signed**

"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.

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.