Thursday, March 5, 2009

The 39 Clues ~ The Maze of Bones, by Rick Riordan

Facts: I lost track of when I started this book, but I think it only took me around 2 days. It was published in 2008. It's only 220 pages long, with 20 chapters. This is a series that I believe will be written by various authors. I was interested because Rick Riordan wrote the first one. This 39 Clues thing has a whole website for playing games and looking for clues of your own. I'm registered already as FloraSunnair. It's an okay site, but I doubt it's as fun as Jacoby's 100 clues game is going to be. Besides, the prizes and stuff that they apparently hand out (I never believe those things) are only elegible to under 14 year-olds. Maybe Brian or LouMac could try out for winning. Here's the website, if you feel so inclined to join, but before you do you should read the book first.

My Opinions: I like the book a lot better than I like its site. The story is that a grandmother dies and she leaves a sort of treasure hunt for her relatives  in her will. This family is apparently the most powerful family on Earth, with a bunch of famous people distantly related to them. The 39 clues should lead someone or some group to a great treasure or something that will make them have a very strong hold over the human race. Something along those lines.
The main characters are young and smart, so they're my kind of people. Amy and Dan Cahill, 14 and 11 respectively. You know, when I read about some of Amy and Dan's competition, Ian and Natalie Kabra, I was somehow reminded of the rivalry between the characters in the Spy Kids series. Remember in the 2nd, Gary and Gertie Giggles? They were who I thought of when I read about Ian and Natalie. So after that I thought of Amy and Dan as Carmen and Junie. I know, this is all probably confusing if you've never seen Spy Kids, let alone read the 39 Clues. You'd have to have done both to appreciate the comparison.
If you don't care for joining the website, that's completely fine. It's not the kind of site where you make friends. It's a lonely search for the clues. You need to play silly games to get them anyway. But if you'll just read the book, you'll find a neat little clue right in it's pages. Hint: Pay special attention to the page numbers, especially near the end.

1 comment:

Brian said...

Hmm... so would you recommend it? I picked it up because it was written by Rick Riordan, but I'm not sure how it will be. It's on my shelf right now.