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The 39 Clues (The Maze of Bones, Book 1) Review
Grace is 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, spanning10 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! User Submitted The 39 Clues (The Maze of Bones, Book 1) ReviewsJanuary 3, 2009 Fascinating First Book in an Intriguing Series of Ten . . . You Don't Need Any Game Cards to Have Fun I decided to wait until I had read the second book in the series, One False Note, to review The Maze of Bones. I wanted to see how well the books work without the trading cards, Web site, and contest. Imagine that the Wizard of Oz had been written as a ten part book where you could read what happens to Dorothy and Toto along with clues to help get them home . . . with an opportunity to win a cash prize for solving the clues before anyone else. It would have been a nice publicity stunt, but the pleasure of reading about Dorothy's adventures would have been no less. The 39 Clues provides a similar opportunity to my imaginary alternative to The Wizard of Oz. The series is a cross between The Amazing Race, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Survivor . . . constructed as a competition for youngsters. As the book opens, an elderly woman, Grace Cahill, is dying. She instructs her attorney to employ "the alternate will." At her funeral, a handful of the 400 Cahill relatives who attend are invited by ticket to attend a reading of the will. During the reading, each person is given five minutes to choose between taking one million dollars or competing in a contest to solve 39 clues in order to become the heir to the Cahill destiny and become the most powerful people on Earth. They may compete as individuals or as teams. Most people take the money and leave. Orphans Amy (fourteen) and Dan (eleven) Cahill are pressured by their great Aunt Beatrice (their grandmother Grace's sister) to take the money. She is also their guardian and says she will turn them over to the state to live in foster homes if they don't take the money. The two decide that they want to compete, having a chance to honor their grandmother's faith in them and their parents' memory. Naturally, the siblings form a team, but how will they compete without any money and adults to help them? Within minutes the competition takes a potentially lethal turn as it becomes obvious that some of the Cahills will stop at nothing to win the competition. In the rest of the book you'll get to know Amy and Dan better, meet their au pair, Nellie Gomez, and travel to Boston, Philadelphia, and across the Atlantic to Europe. An important American turns out to be important to solving the first clue, and you'll read a lot about that person. Youngsters will like it that children are the stars of the book (and the contest) with adults playing a supporting role. Parents will be happy that the book contains a lot of interesting historical, biographical, and geographical information in a format that makes learning fun. The book's main weakness is that it doesn't do much to develop the characters of Amy and Dan before the contest begins. As a result, you'll root for them as underdogs and wish them well . . . but you won't identify with them as closely as if you knew a lot more about them (as Roald Dahl did by introducing the Buckets in detail before launching the golden ticket contest). The writing is otherwise quite good, and you'll find yourself slipping rather easily into the adventure fantasy (despite many details in the story that don't quite work in real life). I liked the excitement of The Maze of Bones better than the more intellectual focus of One False Note. The two books are rewarding for different reasons. Don't expect, however, that the writing is the same or that the characters behave in the same way. As with any multiple-author series, there will be shifts from book to book. To me, the only thing better than a good mystery . . . is a longer good mystery. With the prospect of ten books to keep me entertained, I'm looking forward to reading all ten. I did look at the game cards and only found two that related to the first story. Those two didn't add much to my understanding of the book. The others seemed to relate to future stories, so they did give me a sense of the future story line. That part was nice. I haven't tried the online site for playing the games because I'm not interested in the contest, but if that is something you enjoy, please do take a look. I'm sure the focus will shift more towards the game in 2010 as the book series ends. But until then, you can just have lots of fun with the books! If you like this story, I also encourage you to ask your relatives about your family's history. You might find that your relatives are connected to some pretty famous events and places. Wouldn't that be fun? December 24, 2008 Fabulous book I bought this book for my 10 year old son, who loved it. I could tell it was not only entertaining him, but he was using critical thinking when learning about the clues. I am surprised he hasn't shown interest in the trading cards or on-line activities. Maybe that will come as friends read the books and start talking about those activities. December 23, 2008 Well worth the money My daughter is 8 (strong reader) and has been mesmerized by this book. I had to force her to go to bed at night and she woke up 3 times in the night trying to get me to let her continue to read this book. The online site is wonderful. Literally this website (it's free) will keep your kid busy for weeks. It has a place to put the codes from the collector cards you get when you buy this book. There are hundreds of mini missions your child has to discover. Vocabulary would be appropriate for 5th grader and up. If you child is an avid reader (mine is) a 3rd grader could start this book with some help from an adult. It is the best $12.00 I have ever spent on her. December 20, 2008 Great book to share with a friend. My friend and I bought this book together and really enjoyed woking together to find all the clues. December 9, 2008 The 39 Clues The 39 Clues Book Review Rick Riordan Reviewed By T.J. The 39 Clues is an exciting and thrilling mystical, mystery with events that sneak out at you and make you want to read the book even more. The 39 Clues is about a brother and sister named Dan and Amy. Their mom and dad died in a fire so they live with Aunt Beatrice. Dan and Amy's grandma Grace dies and before she dies she says take the clue not a million dollars. At the graveyard Dan and Amy both win a contest. They can either choose from a million dollars or a clue. Knowing Dan and Amy they take the clue and it leads them through a world of very interesting action. Like when Dan and Amy found skulls on the wall numbered from 1 through 10. Then Dan thought of something very smart. SMASH THEM!!!!! But Amy said..... I give the book a rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Read it trust me. December 4, 2008 Sure it's a marketing strategy...but hey, it's a good story too I ordered this for my son for Christmas. It arrived yesterday and it just sat there...enticing me. So I started to read just a bit to see what the hoopla was all about and lo and behold, I got sucked into the story. I have absolutely no problem with the cards being part of it. My son collects cards from different things--why should this be any different than his Pokemon collection? He'll be reading...bonus #1....he gets to collect cards...bonus #2...and it's online as well...big bonus! December 3, 2008 Best Book Ever!! Can't Wait for Book 2 My Mom got me the Maze of Bones book and some of the cards. I have to admit, I am not a reader! In fact if there is anything!! else to do I will do it to avoid reading. But, I really loved Maze of Bones. I loved the book because it doesn't really end. It keeps going and leads to another clue and another and so on. I liked the way the two kids even though they were alone and afraid at times they kept going. The other families or people looking for the clues were kind of weird and quirky and they made me laugh. I liked the cat Saladin ( murp:-) ). I think that maybe Amy and Dan's grandma knows something about the kids than we don't know yet. I think that they are really truly good and deserve something good to happen for them. I hope in the end Amy and Dan discover the secret first. November 30, 2008 Will Be Wildly Marketed to the Younger Crowd I bought this book for my class because some students asked for it. It is very much like many Japanese Manga books whose purpose is to collect and trade cards. The kids will go wild, the adults less so. The book is pretty well written for its kind but is merely busy and goes from one place to another like an amusement park ride. Not too different from you usual Hollywood movie nowadays. I'm sure a movie is in this book's future. November 20, 2008 The Maze of Bones Dan and Amy had always felt that they were Grandma Grace's favorites. Ever since their parents had died, she'd always had time to spend with them. She appreciated their gifts and always encouraged their creativity. When she passed, Dan and Amy were deeply saddened. All the relatives showed up at the funeral but really they were all just hoping to get a piece of Grace's vast fortune. Grace being a rather unique woman herself, arranged to have the last word. After the funeral, a group of the relatives was quickly ushered into a room where the will was to be read. Each person was offered a choice. They could either leave the room with a million dollars or they could get a clue that would lead them on a quest. The first group to find 39 clues would find out something that would make them the most powerful person ever. As you'd expect, Dan and Amy take their clue and begin the very dangerous journey. The first clue leads them to Benjamin Franklin, a distant relative to the children. It's a journey that takes them across the country and eventually to France. The two experience secret rooms, burning buildings, explosions, and creepy catacombs. Read the book and then be sure to sign up for the online game. The website includes a variety of different fun interactive games and code breaking exercises that help uncover even more clues. Each week more activities are added. November 19, 2008 Key to the fun If you've heard about Scholastic's maverick, multimedia series, The 39 Clues, and you've come to read this review of the inaugural title, THE MAZE OF BONES by Rick Riordan, with the hopes that I'll share the game-launching clue found at the end of the book, you are about to be disappointed. Share the clue that will start a real world game where readers become potential Cahill heirs and there are thousands of dollars in prizes at stake?* No. I'm better than that. I have honor! I have integrity! I have an advance reading copy that's intentionally missing the last 40 pages, so even I don't know what the first clue is!** Here's what I can tell you about the partial advance copy I received. Think of it as THE WESTING GAME meets "The Amazing Race" and together they each power slam a gallon of Red Bull. Reviewing a book that relies on deception and clues to propel its rocket-like plot can be tricky: how do you lay out the action without spoiling the fun? So here's my best attempt at telling you what's going on without ruining what's going on. Fourteen-year-old Amy and eleven-year-old Dan are part of a very select group: they are two of only a handful of people with blood ties to the powerful Cahill family named in the will of their recently deceased grandmother, matriarch Grace Cahill. These beneficiaries are given a simple choice: they can walk away from the will reading with $1,000,000 and, in doing so, renounce all claims to any other piece of Cahill legacy, or they can surrender this inheritance for something potentially far more valuable: the secret that makes the Cahills the most powerful and influential family in human history. A secret that will be revealed through a worldwide scavenger hunt for 39 clues, of which there can be only one winner. With their parents lost in a fire years before and hoping to flee the guardianship of their tyrannical aunt, the siblings see little choice but to track down the 39 clues in the hopes of securing their futures. A series of mini-clues involving Benjamin Franklin --- a distant Cahill relative --- sends the pair on a chase that takes them from their home in Boston to Philadelphia and, eventually, across the sea to Paris. Adding a sense of urgency to their quest is the understanding that, never far behind, is a legion of their scheming, underhanded relatives who would do anything to win the game...and the easiest way to be victorious is to take out the competition. Alliances are made and broken, traps are plotted and sprung, and the only rule to live by is the parting advice given to Dan and Amy by their grandmother's attorney: trust no one. The real world game that readers will be able to play involves clues to be found in books, trading cards and various interactive websites. The books, however, are key to the fun, and if the rest of the series follows Riordan's example (different authors will be contributing titles to The 39 Clues; the second installment by Gordon Korman will be available in December 2008), they will contain riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas and be brimming with Cahill family intrigue. My only concern about where this is headed: can the answer to the mystery live up to the hype? One thing is for sure: it will be a great ride finding out! * For more information about how the real world game works, check out www.The39Clues.com ** And if I had the clue, why would I give it to YOU? Sorry, folks, but from here on out, it's every Cahill for themselves. --- Reviewed by Brian Farrey For more The 39 Clues (The Maze of Bones, Book 1) reviews click here.
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