Interview Starts
Host: If you know a child that has an eye for adventure and a nose for mystery, then we might just have the book for you. The anticipated 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones hits stores tomorrow. The series centers around the Cahills, a powerful family with a mysterious fortune. Two young decendents, Dan and Amy, are on a global race for high-stake clues, and you can be the hero by helping them piece together the mystery. RIck Riordan is the author of the bestselling series Percy Jackson and the Olympian, and now, he's the author of the first book in "The 39 Clues" series. Rick, good morning.

R.R: Good morning.

Host: Now this book breaks the mold because it does things in a different way. Tell us exactly how.

RR: The neat thing about The 39 Clues is that it's integrated. It's not just a series of books, but it also has an online game on the internet so kids could actually become part of the story. There's trading cards involved, they can get numbers off of that. They can go online and really become part of the Cahill family and search for the clues along with Amy and Dan.

Host: Clues in terms of a mystery that involves history in which you're actually trying to involve Ben Franklin interesting. I mean, how did you do this? I mean, this is the thing; it seems like a parent's dream to have a fun book about history.

RR: Well as a long time teacher myself, it's one of the first things that attracted myself to the series. It's really an amazing chance to brush the dust off the history books and make it fun for kids. And Ben Franklin is sort of the touchstone of the first book. He's just a natural with kids. He's probably the most friendly founding father that we have. He was just into everything: inventing, into humor. So yeah, you'll find a lot of interesting stuff you may not have known about Ben.

Host: Okay, so let's talk about how you make him fun and the series fun. These trading cards that you talk about, how exactly does this interactivity work?

RR: Well you can read the books as books, even if you never got the online, and that would be okay. But the thing is, if you do get into the trading cards, you'll find out information about anything in world history. It could be about the Taj Mahal. It could be about Madame Curie. And each card has a unique number. So when the kids go online and they create their own identity as a member of the Cahill family, they input the numbers for each card and they gain access to new information and new influence, and they can solve the puzzles using the cards as they go along.

Host: I see. And this is really for kids, and it seems like a dream book for kids age to twelve in terms of being able to participate, because kids like to feel as though they can cause an effect for something to happen.

RR: That's absolutely right. And with my kids, I have reluctant readers at home, I have two boys. And I was a reluctant reader and so I'm always really conscious on getting kids reading who may not be big readers already. And I think that's one thing The 39 Clues might do very well; it might bring some of the kids in by using some of the multimedia aspects that some kids today are used to like things on the internet.

Host: So this is the first book, and you've written the first book. Other authors will write the subsequent books. Will they all be about Ben Franklin of this courts of ten? What will happen after this?

RR: We will have ten different authors for the ten different books. I've designed the overall storyarch but they have some wonderful authors doing the other books, and no, it's not going to be just about American history. It's going to be all over the world. That's the neat thing: by the time they finish the ten books and done the game, they will have been to every continent and explored the last five hundred years of world history and had fun doing it. That's our hope.

Host: You know, it's so interesting when I think about my kids studying history, and they go, "oh, mom..." you know, this stuff is a completely different way of teaching history. You know, you were talking about your children and how they inspired, one of the specifically, inspired your Percy Jackson series and that your son, who you really wrote for to get him involved in reading, he was really the sort of editor of that series for you. He read your books. Is he reading these?

RR: Oh he is absolutely. My older son, when he was ADHD and dyslexic, when he got the diagnosis five years ago, that's when I started writing the Lightning Thief, which was the first Percy Jackson books. And he was definitely my first and foremost audience and still, my two sons are my first editors. I would never dream about sending a book to my publisher if it didn't work for my own kids. So they've got to pass mustard first.

Host: So really, in that way then, it sounds as though they've got passing mustard, it's about...- for parents who've got kids at home, who are (sorry, couldn't understand word), who are just not going to do it, then this is the book we want to try to get them involved in.

RR: I certainly hope so, yes. Our hopes is just to get those kids reading, and I think this is one way to do it.

Host: Well, thank you so much for joining us.

RR: You're welcome.