Cass and Max-Ernest from The Name of This Book is Secret are back in another sense-filled adventure as members of the secret Terces Society. Cass and Max-Ernest have been inducted into the Society as agents keeping the world safe from the evil Midnight Sun, people who will stop at nothing (even murder!) to carry out their plans to live forever. Their previous adventures involved the senses of smell and sound. This time around, it’s taste, and what tastes better than chocolate? Nothing!

Cass’s mom is obsessed with the blind chef Señor Hugo and is invited to one of his exclusive dinner parties. Cass and Max-Ernest come along and are suprised to learn that at these parties the guests dine in complete darkness so that they can focus on their sense of taste. Partway through dinner Cass gets a feeling something isn’t right and when she shines a contraband light, she and Max-Ernest realize that all of the tables in the restaurant are empty and Cass’s mom is nowhere to be found. Señor Hugo has kidnapped Cass’s mom and is demanding the legendary Tuning Fork for her safe return. Somehow, he knows about Cass and Max-Ernest and The Terces Society. What is the Tuning Fork and what does the chef want to do with it? You can bet that The Midnight Sun and the creepy Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais are in on it too. Author: Pseudonymous Bosch

• Look Inside This Book Is Not Good For You
• Listen to an Excerpt of This Book Is Not Good For You
• This Book Is Not Good For You on CD
• Official Secret Series Website

Chocolate plays an important part in this Cass and Max-Ernest adventure. Chocolate is loved the world -over, now you can find out the secrets behind its power:

• Exploratorium: The Sweet Lure of Chocolate
• The Field Museum Chicago: All About Chocolate
• Hershey Video Tour: How Chocolate is Made
• Neuroscience for Kids: Discovering the Sweet Mysteries of Chocolate
• The Cocoa Tree The story of chocolate from Aztecs to rainforest ecology to modern manufacturing.

Here are the first two in the Secret Series with Cass and Max-Ernest: The Name of This Book is Secret and If you’re Reading This It’s Too Late. If you like these, you might also like the rest, each are about kids having incredible adventures, but without wands or dragons or spells. These kids fly airplanes, shrink, hypnotize people, solve puzzles and more.

WATCH: The 39 Clues: Advanced Agent Training Webcast  

The webcast featured the first five author of The 39 Clues: Rick Riordan, Gordon Korman, Peter Lerangis, Jude Watson, and Patrick Carman. I watched the webcast live and it was really good! Click the link above and you can watch a video of the webcast. Each author revealed a puzzle to solve.  I could solve all of them but one. One was a math story problem - that one was hard. Even the kids on the panel didn’t get that one right, which made me feel slightly better. At the end of the webcast each author revealed a secret. One of the secrets was a surprise and one was shocking! The surprise is that the author of book seven, Peter Lerangis, revealed the book’s title: The Viper’s Nest and showed a picture of the book cover. Book 7 will come out February 7, 2010. The shocker is that Jude Law (the author of Book 6: In Too Deep that comes out tomorrow)…said that in her book, a character we are all familiar with…DIES! Who, who, who? I want to know! The 39 Clues Official Website

• 39 Clues Colorcross Game
• The 39 Clues Family Tree
• Grace Cahill’s Will

The 39 Clues Books so far…there will be 10 in all. The 39 Clues #6 In Too Deep comes out November 3, 2009.

Kari and Lucas from The Mystery of the Third Lucretia are back for another international mystery. This time they are in Scotland where Kari’s Mom has an assignment interviewing a teen prodigy - a touring pianist all of 15 years old.

Kari and Lucas are excited to meet the famous Seneca Crane. Yes, she’s beautiful. Yes, she’s talented. Yes she’s traveled all over the world…but Seneca turns out to be just a normal kid who happens to have mad piano skills.

Seneca reveals the disciplined life she leads and how difficult it is to trade a normal kid life for life touring the world playing music with and for grown-ups. Seneca is frustrated with her overprotective Mom, her strict tutor and her new Stepfather.  The three of them barely let Seneca out of their sight. Kari and Lucas make it their job to show Seneca what regular teens do and convince Seneca’s Mom to let them take Seneca sightseeing around Edinburgh. The three friends have a great time together and look forward to more Scottish adventures after Seneca’s concert performance.

After the concert, everyone waits outside Seneca’s dressing room but she doesn’t appear. A search of the room reveals a ransom note - Seneca doesn’t need rescued anymore from her overprotective Mother…she needs rescued from kidnappers!

Kari and Lucas are on the case in their signature clue-busting style.  They are resourceful, gutsy and determined. They rely on their sharp memories and their keen powers of deduction to sort out the clues and get on the trail of the kidnappers. I can’t wait for Book #3 Adventure at Simba Hill which will come out next. Simba Hill takes place in Africa. Author: Susan Runholt

• Read Chapter One Rescuing Seneca Crane
• Listen to an Audio Excerpt of Rescuing Seneca Crane
• Read an Interview with the Author

Don’t miss Kari and Lucas’s first mystery adventure The Mystery of the Third Lucretia. And here are some more girl sleuths to keep you guessing the clues:

Isn’t an exquisite corpse an oxymoron…like “jumbo shrimp”? Actually, it’s a storytelling game. Really. Who knew? Well, Jon Scieszka (author of the The Stinky Cheese Man, The Time Warp Trio, etc.) for one. He says this game was played in the old days. It is a storytelling game during which several people contribute to a story. One person starts the story and then other people take turns adding to it. The people adding to the story don’t really know where the first person was headed, so each installment can change a lot about what is going on in the story.

For the next year The Exquisite Corpse Adventure will be published on the web with a new chapter every two weeks. Chapter One is by Jon Scieszka. The next chapter, which will appear on Oct. 9 is by Katherine Paterson. They’ve got a whole line-up of favorite children’s book authors ready to tell this crazy tale.  Those authors area; M.T. Anderson, Natalie Babbitt, Calef Brown, Susan Cooper, Kate DiCamillo, Nikki Grimes, Shannon Hale, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), Steven Kellogg, Gregory Maguire, Megan McDonald, Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, Linda Sue Park, Katherine Paterson, James Ransome and Chris Van Dusen. It’s a bit like The 39 Clues because several authors are telling the story, but this one is all online. I will blog about each chapter as it comes out so you won’t miss anything!

• Read Episode One The Exquisite Corpse Adventure
• Listen to Jon Scieszka read part of Episode One The Exquisite Corpse Adventure

To begin this next (5th) installment of The 39 Clues, Dan receives a telegram with a message only he and Amy and their Grandmother (who is dead!) would know. Who sent the telegram? Could there be someone alive who is on their side, someone Grandma put in place to help them? The only way to know the answer is to keep following the clues.

Dan and Amy ditch their nanny Nellie early on in this one. They are truly on their own. The stakes in this global treasure hunt are getting higher by the minute. The kids have almost been killed on more than one occasion. Under pressure, they make a very important, very game changing decision. When one of the clues turns out to be a list of places, the kids realize they need to take a calculated risk. The kids make a deal with adversary Hamilton Holt. As Amy says, “We can’t visit all these places, alone, and neighher can you. What if we were to split them up? You go one way, we’ll go the other, and we’ll share what we find?”

Remember Dan and Amy’s instructions at the beginning of the clue hunt? “Trust no one.” Well, maybe they shouldn’t trust who told them that either! Another fun read following the clues with the Cahills. I still can’t figure out the wesite though, or even think of solving anything myself. I guess I’m not a Cahill! Author: Patrick Carman Series: The 39 Clues

• The 39 Clues Official Website
• 39 Clues Colorcross Game
• The 39 Clues Family Tree
• Grace Cahill’s Will

TONIGHT: Wednesday, August 26 from 6-7 E.T. you can join a live chat with the author of The Black Circle, Patrick Carman. Visit Scholastic for instructions. Transcript from the Live Chat. (And if you read the transcript Patrick tells you where book 6 will take place.)

The first four 39 Clues Books so far…there will be 10 in all.:

• The 39 Clues #6 In Too Deep comes out November 3, 2009.