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Will Parents Like 39 Clues, 350 Cards later?
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The 39 Clues Book One: The Maze of Bones
The 39 Clues is being touted as the big next-thing for Harry Potter fans who’ve exhausted that series. But consider the source -- Scholastic – the folks who already plumbed the fortunes of the mega-buck making Harry and who, it can be assumed, don’t want the party to end.
39 Clues is suggested for the 9- to 12-year-old set. Publishers say hardcover sales of kid’s and young adult’s books are down 35 percent this year and most anything that keeps this age group reading should be seen as a good thing -- but then I saw “cards” and “buy” mentioned in conjunction with this book.
Having been through the buying frenzy of Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and then Magic cards with my son as he traversed ages 9 to 12, I am wallet weary and wary.
I can recall myself asking – “What fun is it to play a game that will inevitably go to the person who has bought the most cards, therefore has the most options? Doesn’t that amount to buying your win?” That all fell on deaf ears. The marketers had their way. “Can I get a pack of Pokemon Cards mom?”
To be sure, my son read a few Magic novels that related to that card game. I never heard they won any literary awards. Is 39 Clues more literature or more supreme money-making gimmick?
Each book comes with 6 cards to get the kids hooked. Then, to get more cards, they – read “parents” -- can buy packs of 16 for about $10. To get them all you’d need about 21 packs. You do the math.
And if this gets going, do you think they’ll stop at 350? Did Beanie Babies stop with “The End?”
Here’s the description for The 39 Clues’ Book I, Maze of Bones, by Rick Riordan:
“Minutes before she died, Grace Cahill changed her will, leaving her descendants an impossible decision: "You have a choice - one million dollars or a clue."
“Grace was the last matriarch of the Cahills, the world's most powerful family. Everyone from Napoleon to Houdini is related to the Cahills, yet the source of the family power is lost. 39 clues hidden around the world will reveal the family's secret, but no one has been able to assemble them. Now the clues race is on, and young Amy and Dan must decide what's important: hunting clues or uncovering what REALLY happened to their parents.
“The 39 Clues is Scholastic's groundbreaking new series, spanning 10 adrenaline-charged books, 350 trading cards, and an online game where readers play a part in the story and compete for over $100,000 in prizes.
“The 39 Clues books set the story, and the cards, website and game allow kids to participate in it. Kids visit the website - the39clues.com - and discover they are lost members of the Cahill family. They set up online accounts where they can compete against other kids and against Cahill characters to find all 39 clues. Through the website, kids can track their points and clues, manage their card collections, dig through the Cahill archives for secrets, and "travel" the world to collect Cahill artifacts, interview characters, and hunt down clues. Collecting cards helps: Each card is a piece of evidence containing information on a Cahill, a clue, or a family secret.
Every kid is a winner - we'll give away prizes through the books, the website and the cards, including a grand prize of $10,000!”
Can I ask a question? What happens when the first kid gets all the clues and blabs it on myspace
And then there’s the website. A typical adult, I understand, isn’t supposed to get it.
I had a teen go to the site and explain this much to me: Each 39 Clues book unlocks one clue. You collect the game cards that help explain the clues. You find additional clues through online missions. Online, you’re eligible to win prizes. There is no cost to sign up.
According to The Boston Globe today, the site is “like Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole….truly a maze and very little is explained beforehand.” Author Riordan told theGlobe : “It’s difficult to explain in a way that adults can get their heads around, but when you explain it to kids, they intuitively get it. They’ve grown up with the on-line experience. They understand the connection between books and the Internet. They don’t see them as that different.”
Granted. But good writing is still good writing and bad bad, doesn’t matter how it’s delivered. I’m not saying these are badly written. I saw a youngster in the park the other day engrossed in a book and she said it was one of Rick Riordan’s Percy and the Olympians series. It was keeping her interested on a sunny day. But maybe there are better books.
The Globe interviewed 11 and 12-year-old sisters who said they didn’t have to go online to enjoy the books. Juliana Van Amsterdam of Natick. Mass., she loved theMaze of Bones by the 10th page. “The plot is absolutely racing,” writer David Mehegan quoted her as saying.
Riordan was chosen to write the first 39 Clues title, The Maze of Bones. Published last month with a first printing of 500,000 in the United States and more than 1 million in English worldwide, Maze jumped to No. 1 on The New York Times children's chapter-book bestseller list, dropping to No. 3 last Sunday.
Book 2, One False Note, by Gordon Korman, will be on sale in time for Christmas, Dec. 2. The third book, The Sword Thief, by Peter Lerangis, hits stores on March 3, 2009.
The 10th and final book is slated to arrive in September 2010.
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