Cracking the Whisperloom Code

The upcoming middle-grades mystery, Georgie Summers and the Scribes of Scatterplot, by Isaac Rudansky, includes secret messages in the beginning of each chapter, written in the Whisperloom alphabet.

Here’s how I solved the code, so you can try it too:

Substituting Symbols – First, there 26 secret symbols, so I knew they were letters… but the symbols in the coded messages are intricate and artistic, which adds to the mystery and makes them difficult to copy. I replaced them with numbers for easier tracking.

Noticing Letter Frequency – As I transcribed the Whisperloom code into numbers, I noticed the most commonly appearing symbols, assuming these would be frequently used letters in English, like vowels. I’ve done a lot of escape room puzzles, so I didn’t fall for A=1, B=2. But I did keep a tally of the most frequent letters and then I started guessing them as vowels.

Looking for Common Patterns – I looked at short words to help find vowels and common letters. A one-letter word has to be A or I, a two-letter could be something like in, an, on, at, to, etc. This helped narrow down my vowels. As I started to see words, I looked for repeating patterns like “TH,” and “ER” to help fill in the gaps. I also eliminated some guesses because they couldn’t possibly be double letters.

Using New Letters in Longer Words – With a few words partially solved, I could apply those letters to decipher longer, more complex words. I also made guesses here, and tried those guesses in new words.

Rewriting in a New Color – At this point, I rewrote the chapter messages using all my known letters. For the missing characters, I used blanks with the number placeholders underneath to represent potential matches. This made it easier to track progress and spot emerging patterns, and also tell which letters were locked in and which were still guesses. This helped me make better guesses and apply my known letters.

Discovering the Hidden Message – As the coded words came together, I realized the whole message formed a poem, which made it even easier to find the last few words. Such a fun challenge!

If you enjoy logic challenges and pattern recognition, you can try the Whisperloom Code, too. You can, of course, just read the book as a novel, without solving the code. Have you tried a codebreaking puzzle like this before? Let me know your strategy!

Posted in partnership with BookInfluencers.com. I received this book from BookInfluencers to read and solve the code, thank you! Opinions on my book blog are my own, as always.