Spy School Entrance Exam: A Spy School Book of Devious Word Searches, Clever Crosswords, Sly Sudoku, and Other Top Secret Puzzles!

by Stuart Gibbs, Jeff Chen

Solve word searches, crack codes, and complete cryptic crosswords to show the CIA that you have what it takes to join Ben and the rest of the crew on their next covert mission with this Spy School companion puzzle book. If you are reading this letter, it means that you are an extremely special person. You have been carefully vetted by a top team of psychologists, intelligence agents, and CIA recruiters who have covertly analyzed every aspect of your personality and determined that you are one of the few students on the planet who has the potential skills, brains, and gumption to become a student at the Academy of Espionage. The following pages contain some of the most devious, challenging, complex puzzles ever created, devised to help us determine who are the cream of the crop and then recruit them to the academy. Good luck! You’ll need it.

Genres: Middle Grade

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 24, 2024

Reviews

[Mark Buxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

What worked:
This book is a collection of puzzles enriched by the Spy School characters. The premise of the book is past mistakes led to security breaches and tainted recruitment of new CIA spies. The puzzles in this book present a new step in the screening process to identify intelligent, qualified candidates. After a brief, redacted introduction from the new CIA director, Zoe describes the first set of puzzles, word searches. Zoe has been a kind character in the past so Erica Hale presents a contrasting tone in the next section, different types of codes. Erica says she won’t be as supportive as Zoe since she’s “a spy, not a cheerleader”. Alexander Hale, Erica’s father, continues his tendency to exaggerate past accomplishments as he introduces “Outside the Box” mental challenges. However, Murray Hill, the antagonist in most of the Spy School books, interrupts and shares clever and devious solutions to the challenges. More characters from the series return to share Crypt-to-grams, crosswords, Battleship-like Battle Royale, and other familiar activities.
Many of the puzzle formats will be familiar to middle-grade readers although modifications have been made to make things trickier. Most people have seen Sudoku with numbers but how many are ready for a Sudoku with letters? “Chain Letters of Doom” requires readers to connect all twenty-six letters of the alphabet, in order, without crossing the connecting line. A fun twist to every section is the final puzzle’s hidden, coded messages that will be used later in the book. This detail promotes the book’s spy theme and helps to connect all of the different sections. In addition, all of the text, clues, and explanations are related to readers applying to become new CIA agents and to thoughts of the Spy School series.
Fans of Spy School will enjoy revisiting characters they’ve enjoyed in the past. Ben Ripley talks about his limited qualifications as a CIA agent even though he’s the main character of the series. He introduces Sudoku puzzles while Catherine Hale describes Double-Cross Crosswords. The characters mention previous events and missions so they evoke readers’ memories from other books. The last section of the book shares solutions to all of the puzzles. Of course, Murray Hill’s explanations cover more pages because he must share the clever solutions and then follow with his multiple devious solutions for villains.
What didn’t work as well:
Everyone can enjoy the variety of puzzles but they will need to read previous Spy School books to fully appreciate the characters and narratives. They have unique personalities and there are references to previous moments or relationships in the series. Crossword clues are related to the series so readers will need to have some knowledge of previous books to complete them.
The final verdict:
This book will be a treat for loyal readers although those unfamiliar with the series may not enjoy it as much. The different versions of familiar puzzles and challenges make them more interesting and difficult. Those who enjoy puzzles and Spy School will love this book and I recommend you check it out!

[Ms. Yingling · Rating 3 out of 5]

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Clearly, this is not a book for a school library, given the amount of puzzles in it, but it would make an excellent gift for an avid SPY SCHOOL fan. In addition to the different puzzles, there is some introductory notes from the principal (heavily redacted, of course!), information about different characters, as they introduce a variety of puzzles, and a lot of illustrations in the style of the SPY SCHOOL graphic novels. I'm not a fan of puzzles, but they do have different levels of them, and they look fairly interesting. The one exception is the crossword puzzles. Creating proper crosswords is a difficult thing to do, and these are rather simplistic. There is also information about some codes. Answers and explanations are at the back.

I liked the explanation that the system had been hacked, so the school was going back to old school pencil and paper testing. If I had a paper ARC of this, I would have to have a contest for the winner, because I have a lot of readers who adore the series and would love to get their hands on this! This is 240 pages long, so not a short book, and worth the $11 price tag.

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a good digital book or one that would work well in a library, but it is A LOT of fun! I loved the puzzles and the hints from the different characters. I'm going to try to get my hands on a physical copy, since it was too hard to do the puzzles on the tablet. But a great gift for any Spy School fan!

[Matt Chaffee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really fun book, reading it now am curious to see what happens in the end but a nice fun challenge for people like me ( avid spy schoolers)

[Erin Buhr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spy School fans will love this activity book. It has different chapters where familiar characters from the series teach you some skill. Then you get to practice uncovering clues in different ways. The puzzles vary from familiar ones like word searches and crosswords to more unique decoding puzzles and letter based sudoku. Knowledge of the series is definitely preferable throughout to get the most out of the book so I recommend it for true fans. For kids, like mine, who love this series this would make a fantastic road trip activity book or surprise gift in their holiday stocking.

[Shiv Goyal · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is super fun ! it has codes sudoku word searches and more!!!