After Rick Riordan laid the foundation for Scholastic’s event-driven, history-drenched, cross-platform series, 39 Clue: The Maze of Bones, young adult fave Gordon Korman picks up the baton for the second leg of the journey. Korman pulls out all the stops up as he ratchets up the thrills and pace in 39 Clues: One False Note.
The series is projected to run for 10 novels. The five writers involved with the books will write two volumes apiece. All of the writers are heavy hitters in their own rights. Scholastic didn’t spare the expense to put this series together.
In addition to the books, the series has online support, as well as a collectible card game. The contest connected to the books offers $100,000 to the person who solves the final mysteries of the Cahill family. The Cahill family is related to numerous historical figures around the world. Benjamin Franklin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and several other people kids will recognize from school work, as well as movies, are all tucked into the pages.
Korman begins his offering immediately after the events of the first book. Amy and Dan, the Cahill siblings orphaned by a tragic accident, start out on a passenger train with their au pair Nellie and their grandmother’s cat Saladin and immediately run into another family searching for the 39 Clues. They quickly manage to outwit the Holt family (again!) and continue on their way to ferret out the secret of the clue they got in Paris.
This time the clue centers on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the most brilliant musicians of all time. Mozart is supposed to be part of the Janus branch of the Cahill family. So far, the Cahills are broken up into four branches: Lucian, Ekaterina, Janus, and Tomas. Dan and Amy don’t yet know which branch they belong to, and this will probably be part of the big mystery of the books.
The action remains fast and frantic throughout the book, taking our young heroes from Paris to Germany to Austria to Italy. Korman does a really good job of presenting the history as well as the geographical views of those countries. Young readers will get a smattering of history and the landscape as they barrel along through the furious action and blistering dialogue.
Article comments