York, The Shadow Cipher by: Sophie J

Main Characters

Tess Biedermann: an adventurous girl about 12-14 years old, and even though she worries almost every minute of the day, she is very brave. Tess is friendly and funny, but is mostly ignored at school. Tess is quite smart, (not as smart as her brother), has olive skin, and almost always has her long, dark hair pulled back in a braid. She lives in an apartment on 354 W. 73rd street in New York with her parents, her brother, and their enormous cat, Nine.

Theo Biedermann: an extremely smart and sensible boy, Tess's twin. He also doesn't have any friends, but Theo and Tess don't really need any, until they meet Jaime. Theo wins a lego contest by building the Tower of London, spells, "Fibonacci" with his breakfast cereal, and Tess and he speak "gibberish" at school, even to their teachers! continued on main characters: continued

Main Characters

Main Characters: continued

Jaime Eduardo: A tall, imaginative boy, about the same age as Tess and Theo. Jaime enjoys playing video games, superheroes, drawing superheroes, and gets good grades in school. He lives with his grandmother, (who he calls "Mima"), in the same apartment building as Tess and Theo. His mom died just a few weeks after Jaime's birth, and his dad has to go to Sudan for three months to start up a new solar power plant. Jaime has two girl hamster-hogs named Napolean and Tyrone.

Main Characters: continued

Secondary Characters

Mr. and Mrs. Biedermann: Tess and Theo's parents.

Mima/Mrs. Cruz: Jaime's grandmother who also owns the apartment

Grandpa Ben: Tess and Theo's kind grandfather who has devoted most of his life to deciphering the Old York Cipher

Uncle Edgar: One of Grandpa Ben's good friends who works at the Old York Puzzler and Cipherist Society and helps Tess, Theo, and Jaime decipher the Old York Cipher

Mr. Stoop and Mr. Pinscher: Two greedy men who work for an evil man named Slant, who wants to take down Tess, Theo, and Jaime's ancient and misterious but wonderful apartment building made by the Morningstarrs.

The Morningstarr Twins: Twin architects of pure genius who constructed most of the mysterious and complex buildings and machines in New York while they were alive, including the Morningstarr Tower and the apartment on 73rd street.

Secondary Characters

Setting

The prologue is set on New Year's Eve, 1855, and the afterward is on Febuary 13, 1861. The story mostly takes place in Tess, Theo, and Jaime's apartment on 354 W. 73rd street in present day. While Tess and Theo are trying to decipher the cipher, they go to many different places, including the Statue of Liberty and the Old York Puzzler and Cipherist Society. When Tess, Theo, and Jaime figure out a Rosicrucian Cipher that could lead them to something helpful, they have a scary, crazy adventure on the Underway that is almost fatal. The season is summer. The city itself is one of the most important things in this book because the buildings, machines, transportation, etc. seem almost magical in a mechanical sort of way. The elevators can zigzag all over the place, picking up and dropping off people, and the Underway train is run by mysterious robots called Guildmen who won't reveal their secrets to anyone.

Setting

Brief Introduction

One day, two men named Mr. Stoop and Mr. Pinscher come to the Biedermann's apartment and ask them to sign some papers saying that the two men are selling the apartment to a man named Slant and that everyone who lives in the building has to vacate the apartment by the end of summer. Tess and Theo, the Biedermanns' twins, and Jaime, another person who lives in the apartment, start to decipher the Old York Cipher, created long ago by the Morningstarr Twins, who also constructed the apartment building. Tess, Theo, and Jaime have to figure out the mysterious cipher before the summer is over to prove the Morningstarrs and their buildings are too important to be taken down, or else they will all be destroyed.

Obstacles

One big obstacle in The Shadow Cipher are two men named Mr. Stoop and Mr. Pinscher, who are snotty, greedy, and very full of themselves. They work for another evil man named Slant, who's plan is to destroy all the old, special buildings in New York, and replace them with bigger, "better" ones, starting with the apartment on 73rd street. The first time Mr. Stoop and Mr. Pinscher enter the story is when they are going around the apartment for the signatures of the people living there so they can buy it. Theo Biedermann protests by saying that the two men can't sell or buy a Morningstarr building, but they only answer with a sly, evil, mysterious, "Oh yes we can." Mr. Stoop and Mr. Pinscher are threats and try to stop Tess, Theo, and Jaime throughout the whole book.

Another problem/obstacle is the Old York Cipher itself, because it is so crazy hard to decipher, no one has ever done it before, and it was created by genius twins who are no longer alive. The Morningstarrs were twins of huge intelligence who lived in the 1800s and built most of the mysterious, special buildings and machines in York, including the apartment, the Morningstarr Tower, and the Underway, which are all very complicated and hard to understand. Mrs. Cruz (Jaime's grandmother) even says, "The whole thing is kooky. Who leaves the fate of so many people in a puzzle no one can solve?" Luckily, Tess, Theo, and Jaime are very persistant people, who don't give up easily, if at all. Also, Tess and Theo's grandpa, Grandpa Ben, has a lot of friends at the Old York Puzzler and Cipherist Society, who are cipherists, and most of them have been for a lot of their life. The trio get some useful information there, but what really keeps them going is their curiosity, persistance, and stamina. Read York, The Shadow Cipher to find out if they have enough to solve the cipher!

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