Secret Coders

The first chapter of the novel introduces the main characters and the primary conflicts that they will face throughout the book. Additionally, Yang also introduces a basic concept of binary code within the plot. The format of the graphic novel aims to help teach coding concepts in an interesting, efficient way, such as differing panels, separate text formatting for narration and dialogue, and enhanced colors. These techniques aren’t available in traditional text-only novels and create an atmospheric, immersive text that mirrors film or television.

Hopper narrates in the first person and actively participates in the story—the narration is indicated by words in rectangular boxes, and her dialogue appears in speech bubbles. These visual cues help readers keep the layers of the narrative straight, as well as imbue them with more irony—sometimes the things that Hopper says do not align with the truth of what she shares in her narration. For example, Hopper frequently expresses frustration or bravado in her speech, but her narration often reveals her underlying loneliness and uncertainty. The aim of this dual perspective is to deepen the reader’s connection to her emotional struggles.

The initial conflict of the novel is Hopper's sense of loneliness and alienation within her home and school settings. She is unhappy about moving, hates her new school, and is hostile toward her mother. Her mother is not visually present in the first chapter; she is only shown through speech bubbles coming from a voice outside of the panel. This accentuates Hopper’s emotional distance from her mother and conceals her identity. By withholding an image of her mother, Yang visually reinforces Hopper’s perception of her as an external force in her life rather than someone she feels close to. In the first section, Hopper struggles to find her place in her new school community. She tries to connect with Eni over basketball, but it is their curiosity and interest in coding that brings them together, even after he embarrasses her in front of his friends. This suggests that the driving force behind Eni and Hopper’s friendship is their mutual observation of the strangely robotic birds at Stately Academy, which imbues the text with mystery as they begin searching for clues.

In addition to introducing the characters and conflicts, Yang introduces basic concepts of coding. He uses the birds as an accessible image to represent binary code. The birds also serve as antagonists in the story because Mr. Bee has programmed them to attack Hopper and Eni when they break into the shed. This blending of coding concepts with plot progression demonstrates Yang’s integration of educational content into a narrative structure. Rather than feeling like a forced lesson, the coding elements are meant to be organic tools that the characters must learn to navigate their world, mirroring the way real-life problem-solving often requires technical knowledge. Eni uses a column and penny game to explain how binary code works to Hopper, which is instructional for readers and ties into the overall theme and core idea of Computer Coding as a Fun and Accessible Discipline. Eni teaching Hopper binary code is the first step to unlocking the mysteries at Stately Academy, as they use it to literally unlock Mr. Bee’s shed. The chapter ends with a question for the reader to explore: What numbers are the birds displaying with their eyes in binary code? Pausing there allows readers to participate, applying what they’ve learned alongside Hopper before moving on to the next chapter. This technique enhances the immersive quality of graphic novels by creating a higher level of interaction.

As Eni and Hopper begin using binary code to uncover the mysteries at their school, Eni comments that he’d always felt like the school was haunted by things that aren’t ghosts (25). Now, he is finally starting to understand that suspicion. This idea of coding and computer programming as having magical or supernatural qualities connects with the quote in the epigraph, in which Wally Feurzeig, the co-creator of the Logo programming language, says that the early days of using Logo was “this wonderful time between magic and so-called rationality” (i). This idea—that logical structures like coding can evoke a sense of wonder and discovery—reflects one of the novel’s central messages: Knowledge can be just as thrilling as adventure. Through their journey, Yang seems to have built the plot of this series around this concept, and this comment from Eni shows that the characters are embracing the excitement of coding as “magic,” too.