Demigods of the Week

Thanks to Ms. Cartwright's class at M C Williams Elementary in Wilmington, NC, for sending me the photo above. Earlier in the spring I'd sent them a Percy poster as part of a contest. Before their end-of-grade testing, they held a "Camp Half Blood Day" to train for the tests. They held a pentathlon with arts and crafts, made their own T-shirts, and selected the cabins that they thought they belonged in. Cool idea!

How Cool is This?

My day was made yesterday with this news piece about the Obamas doing community service. They were helping to fill 15,000 backpacks for children of military families, and the goodies included two books: The Penderwicks and The Lightning Thief. That's President Obama and Sasha in front of a stack of Lightning Thief. How cool! I'm sorry I didn't know about the project or I would've autographed the books. What an honor to have Percy given out to so many military families. I hope the kids enjoy the book, and thanks to the First Family!

39 Clues in Japan

It's so fun to see how artists in different countries visualize a story. The 39 Clues is getting ready to launch in Japan, and the Japanese publisher was kind enough to let me share some of their sketches for the characters. Recognize them? All images are Copyright 2009 MEDIA FACTORY, INC. All Rights Reserved. Thank you to Scholastic Books and Media Factory for letting me post this sneak peek!

Your Barista Today is Hades

Heading home from Phoenix after a fun signing last night at the Mesa Barnes & Noble. The event was part of the B&N Summer Reading program, and the store staff did a fantastic job organizing. Many of them dressed in costume. We had Demeter working crowd control, Hera helping put names on sticky notes, and Ares stood on my right all night as my bodyguard. Needless to say, we had no security problems. My favorite, though, was Hades in full armor working the cafe espresso machine. Ever try to order a venti latte from a guy wearing the Helmet of Terror? It isn't easy.

Donna the community relations manager estimated we had about 1800 people come through. Holy Schmokes! The weather cooperated beautifully. It was unseasonably cool and overcast. Everyone was very patient and enthusiastic, and although the signing line took a little over three hours, that was actually very fast for the size crowd we had. Thanks to Donna and the staff for running things so well.

My favorite comments: "What would a camper do if they needed a prophecy during the school year and Rachel wasn't there?" Good question. Probably wait! Another: "What does Olympus look like now that Annabeth has redesigned it?" Ah, you'll have to wait for the next series!

A special shout out to Wayne, a very dedicated dad who waited in line for his daughter, who was out of town. Becky happened across Wayne's blog of the event here, and you can see his videos, comments, etc. And for that conversation we didn't get to have, Wayne: That is so cool about your kids getting into the Percy series! The movie will just cover the Lightning Thief. It will not combine the books. I agree it's pretty cool to see such a big crowd of kids come out for an event about reading. Hope you have a great summer and get rested up for next school year. And thanks for waiting so long to get Sofia's book signed. You deserve a wonderful Father's Day!

Now I'm heading home to get back to work on writing! Thanks, Phoenix demigods, for a wonderful visit.

Off to Phoenix!

I leave in the morning for a short visit to Phoenix. I'll be doing a signing at the Mesa Barnes & Noble tomorrow evening as part of the B&N Summer Reading program. If you're in the area, come on by! We're expecting a big crowd and we'll have a lot of fun.

And They're Outta Here!

The T-shirt giveaway is now closed, as we have already received more requests than we have shirts. That was fast! We'll contact those teachers who will be receiving shirts as soon as we get them in the mail. Thanks to everyone who wrote.

Teachers and Librarians: A Summer T-shirt Giveaway

Okay, educators . . . here's the deal. In my Garage of Infinite Wonders, I have several boxes of Battle of the Labyrinth T-shirts left over from last spring's tour. They are black, with the book logo in full color on one side, and the slogan 'Boy Meets Underworld' on the other. They are collector's items from the tour -- you can't buy them anywhere for any price, but they can be yours for free. THE HITCH: I only have adult small and youth large left. All the bigger sizes were snatched up long ago. But if you think those sizes would fit your students, send an email to my website and I will send you enough T-shirts for your entire class.

The rules:

1) This offer is only for teachers and librarians. We can't mail out single t-shirts to individual fans (no exceptions), though fans are welcome to encourage their teachers to submit an email for the whole class. You will need to provide a verifiable school mailing address or public library address so we can make sure the shirts go to the right place -- i.e. not eBay.

2) The shirts will be sent out first come, first serve until they are all gone.

3) We will ship out as few as 10 shirts, or as many as 30, to each individual teacher. You can specify adult S, youth L or ask for a mix. We'll do our best to accommodate.

4) We can only ship within the United States.

5) Please put 'T-shirt giveaway' in the subject line of the email so we can sort it to the right place.

Good luck, and have a great summer!

Does Age Appropriateness Still Have Meaning?

A blog entry in Publisher Weekly got me thinking about this issue, and I thinks it's important enough to comment on, even though it's a contentious subject. I'd agree with Josie: the idea of nine-year-old girls reading Twilight makes me uncomfortable. No bookseller, teacher or parent ever wants to be in a position of telling a young reader not to read a book, but I think the writer of Ecclesiastes had a point: to everything there is a season. Call me a prude, but I'm not sure elementary school is the right season for hot and steamy undead romance novels. (And yes, I've read Twilight.)

Long before Twilight, I had trouble with the one-upmanship around Harry Potter. It was as if families were in a competition to see how soon their children could master those massive tomes. "My first grader read them!" "Oh yeah, well my kindergartner finished the whole series!" "Oh yeah, well my toddler . . ." It just seemed silly to me. Why the hurry? Growing up is not a race. For one thing, it's sad when kindergartners skip over kindergarten books, because they're missing an awful lot of good, age appropriate literature. For another thing, they won't appreciate the older books as much as they would when they're . . . well, older. Some of the content in the older books really is not designed for the very young. I totally understand kids wanting to be part of the newest cool thing. But those books will still be there in a few years, and if they're not as cool anymore, something else will be.

By the same token, I'll admit I have to bite my tongue when a parent comes up to me and says, "My six-year-old loves Percy Jackson." The author part of me says, "Hey, that's great!" The teacher part of me wants to scream, "A six-year-old has no business reading Percy Jackson!" I don't care if they can decode the words. The content simply is not appropriate, in my humble opinion as the guy who wrote the books (and designed them for the middle grades, roughly ages 9-14).

There's an old test we teachers use for determining whether a child is ready for a book. The child is instructed to read a random page in the novel, and put a finger down for every time they stumble on a word. If they stumble five times and make a fist, the book will probably be too frustrating. The problem with this system is that it only measures decoding skills. It does nothing to determine the appropriateness of content. Plenty of kids can read Percy Jackson, or Harry Potter, or Twilight. Should they read those books at their present age? That's another question entirely.

Having said that, I recognize that every child is different. Each reader is ready for different books at slightly different times, but there are developmental stages -- socially, emotionally, cognitively -- and they all have to be considered. I'm never for censorship, as long as book choice is the result of responsible decision-making and engaged parenting. Rather than the 'five finger' method, I usually suggest something much more time-consuming, but much more accurate. When in doubt, the parent should read the book. If it still seems good for your child, then go for it. Have a family discussion about the content. If it seems like a fine idea to you for your nine-year-old to read Twilight or your six-year-old to read Percy Jackson, well . . . I may still disagree with you, but at least I'll know you made an informed choice.

Demigod of the Week

Renee G., who is going into eighth grade, recently sent me a link to a school project she created -- a website comparing traditional Greek mythology to the Percy Jackson series. It's very well done. Thanks for sharing your work, Renee. You are demigod of the week!

The Unstoppable Cahills

The 39 Clues series continues to gain steam. Congratulations to Jude Watson, whose installment Beyond the Grave debuted at #11 in USA Today, the highest debut yet for the series. 39 Clues is also #3 on the New York Times children's series bestseller list. According to USA Today, Scholastic Books is reporting over 3 million copies of the books in print and 600,000 users on the 39 Clues site. That's a lot of Cahills!

NPR Interview

Listen to "To the Best of Our Knowledge" today on NPR for an interview with me. The entire program is dedicated to the theme "How We Learn."

Pay Teachers Well? What a Concept!

Interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about a charter school that is recruiting extremely talented teachers and paying them a (gasp!) professional salary of $125,000 (about 2 1/2 times the national average). The school opens next year. I hope the NYT does a follow-up article. I've often wondered what would happen if we valued education the same way we value, say, medicine. How would it transform our classrooms if we trained our teachers, compensated them, held them accountable, and held them in the same esteem as we do doctors? Not that I see such a seismic shift occurring, but I'll be curious to see how this charter school fares.

Fantasy Road Trip Contest

Check out the Fantasy Road Trip Contest from Listening Library! Submit a video and you could win cool prizes.

The Fourth Adventure Begins!

Happy Publication Day to Jude Watson, who launches the fourth 39 Clues adventure: Beyond the Grave, today! If you thought Amy and Dan Cahill were in trouble before, wait until you see what this book brings. The plot thickens. Much is revealed. More secrets are unearthed!