Ask HN: What Cryptography book do you recommend for reading with 10 year olds?
We are looking for a Cryptography book recommendation to read with our 10 year old who loves making up his own ciphers. He loves reading adult math and science books with us at breakfast like Ignition!, Humble Pi, and The Hunt for Vulcan. All of the kids books that we've found are just puzzles, but I don't want to get something way over his head math-wise. A good history with basic theory behind the different types would be perfect. Thanks!
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P.S. In fact, I was going to send that book to my friend's son who is about same age, and who got some sudden interest in cryptography recently. So it is safe to say that I am now aware of at least two 10 year olds who have interest in Cryptography. I feel a bit surprised, but in a good way :)
He started with inventing his own alphabet and language as he was learning to read and write, which eventually evolved into reinventing the Secret Decoder Ring with increasing complexity, so we want to encourage him in his adventure.
Something like that would be practical.
The Code Book by Simon Singh
The Codebreakers by David Kahn
The Mathematics of Secrets by Joshua Holden