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.

TODAY: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET / 10:00 a.m. PT (Indiana is 1:00pm)
Just go to the Scholastic Goosembumps site.

Do you have a question you want to ask R.L. Stine? Submit Your Question, then watch the webcast to see if your question is answered. If you miss the live webcast, don’t worry, there is a video recap - see below.

• Watch some Goosebumps TV Show Clips
• Goosebumps Online Games
• Goosebumps Maze
• Goosebumps Creepy Crossword Puzzle
• Worrisome Word Scrambler
• Create a Monster Story
• Get Goosebumps: The Science of Fear
• The Moonlit Road: Strange Tales of the American South

Live Webcast Today at 1:00pm PDT/4:00pm EDT (Indiana is 4:00pm) with Kate DiCamillo, author of The Magician’s Elephant. To listen to the webcast visit The Magician’s Elephant Official Website and click on the webcast button. You need to register first so give yourself some time. 

Peter is an orphan. Even though he is just a boy, he has a job taking care of an old soldier. Peter is supposed to be learning how to be a soldier, but mostly he is just being a servant boy to the soldier. Peter is sad and lonely.

One day on his way to buy some food, Peter impulsively spends his food money on a fortune-teller. The fortune-teller tells Peter that his little sister Adele is still alive and that an elephant will lead him to her. An elephant in the middle of winter! What nonsense! What a waste of money. And now Peter will go hungry as well.

But strange and magical things are about to happen. The very night that Peter visits the fortune-teller a magician is putting on a show. He makes an elephant, (an elephant!) appear out of thin air.

Can this miraculous elephant mean that Peter can have a miracle of his own? Is his sister really alive and can the elephant help him find her? Author: Kate DeCamillo

• Look Inside The Magician’s Elephant
• Read Chapter One The MAgician’s Elephant
• Listen to Chapter One The Magician’s Elephant
• The Magician’s Elephant Official Website
• Read an Interview with the Author: Kate DiCamillo
• Listen to an Interview with the Author: Kate DiCamillo

If you like the kind of story where a little bit of something magical helps people find happiness, try one of these:

WHEN: Tue., Sept. 15 6-7 PM E.T.

WHERE: Scholastic STACKS
(Join Chat.)

TOPIC: the three books listed below.

If you missed this live chat you can read the transcript.

Follow the link to join the live chat. The book choices this time are a little old. Scholastic asked kids to vote on their top three choices so…you can only blame yourselves! If you click on the instructions link, you can see the other books that were contenders. Frindle missed out by a hair. Last time, the author chimed in, so maybe you can chat with one or more of these authors this time too.

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.