Ask HN: What cryptography book do you recommend for reading with 10 year olds?

As a 10-year old, my introduction to cryptography was from reading a few novels by Jules Verne:

The Giant Raft or 800 Leagues On The Amazon

Mathias Sandorf

A Journey To The Centre of the Earth

After reading those, I played with the ciphers described there, i.e. I made and used the transposition grid from Mathias Sandorf and I used various Vigenère ciphers, like that from "800 Leagues On The Amazon".

Due to the interest generated by those stories, a few years later I read various textbooks about modern cryptography.

The book "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier is now somewhat old, so it is no longer up-to-date, but it is written in a style more accessible for newbies than most textbooks about cryptography, so I think that it would be adequate for a teenager who is good at mathematics.

One of the books that got me interested in cryptography as a kid was Artemis Fowl! It might be too simple for him now, but the gnommish (glyph substitution cipher) on every page was really fun for me to figure out.

There's an edition of The Code Book for youth: https://www.amazon.com/clp/0385900325?lv=shuf&channelId=500

I would suggest Real-World Cryptography by DAVID WONG. It has good introduction covering basic primitives like various hash functions, MAC, KDF, then sym/asym, and so on, all the way to PQC and protocols design. A nice intro book, maybe your 10 y.o. will find it interesting.

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 :)

Don't forget about the NSAs CryptoKids!

https://web.archive.org/web/20100128072801/http://www.nsa.go...

(They went offline a few administrations ago, hence the archive link)

You can also jump around the timeline in the archive to see different versions.

https://wearethemutants.com/2018/07/05/usbornes-the-knowhow-... always fun.

(used copies still available)

Besides practical books does anyone have opinions about these?

The Code Book by Simon Singh

The Codebreakers by David Kahn

The Mathematics of Secrets by Joshua Holden

Not a book but you could construct a little walk through some historical crypto as fun games to play. Caesar cipher, Vigenere cipher, one time pad, then learn about primes and make some repeating keys..you could do a super simple matrix example to make tiny DES s-boxes. I bet claude could come up with some games / fun little exploration things to do together, and you and your son could do a lot of fun motivating math together. You could anchor it with rewards like pictures of you and your partner or some family history or stuff that feels like a treasure hunt.

Mine are out of the house, but I had a few who might have really liked doing something like this.. could make a nice Christmas present, the first mysterious letter..

Introduction to Modern Cryptography by Katz and Lindell is from a pedagogical perspective one of the best-structured textbooks I've ever read on computer science topics (and in general, but my exposure to textbooks is a biased sample). It goes into the foundations of cryptographic theory and gives a good basis for understanding and contextualizing even advances that have been made since its publication. I think most children can grasp difficult material if an adult that's good at the meta-skill of teaching is helping them with it via individual attention

should you and your kid speak french or spanish, "la bible des codes secrets" by Hervé Lehning, the bible of secret codes, is a book I greatly enjoyed as a young teen. it walks you through the history of cryptography until the current times, and has a lot of examples where you can try it out yourself. it is almost not coding-oriented, with only the last 3 chapters explaining modern-day encryption, but as far as my experience goes, few ten-year old enjoy reading documentation or textbook-style books. This one is very didactic, and also an interestin tour through history.

I haven't read this title, but I've read some of the other manga guides on NoStarch and they're pretty good. Try The Manga Guide to Cryptography[1]

[1]: https://nostarch.com/mangacrypto

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Maybe The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allen Poe? Although the language might be a bit baroque.

Title: Can You Crack the Code?: A Fascinating History of Ciphers and Cryptography

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1681195143 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1681195148

Title: Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0763629723 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0763629724

Alvin's Secret Code by Clifford B. Hicks. That's the one that got me started. I think I read it in 3rd grade (age 8).

B ZLZLZ XEVVP OYVQRFYB: M JFZGMZFNX QHUMH.

U WJZI VH KZJBY QYIM HUZFGBZ.

Key: TRENCH

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

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Not a cryptography book but highly recommended for the young curious mind: The Cuckoo's Egg

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the code book

Work with your llms and figure out a “zero knowledge proof” game that can be played on paper.

Something like that would be practical.