I remember very clearly the first time I held in my hands The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan. It was September, 2008, more than five years ago now. I was in sixth grade, and I was super excited for the new series The 39 Clues.
After all, my favorite author, Gordon Korman (who had just come to my school a few months earlier), was involved in the series and was going to write the second book. The plot sounded super interesting, plus the series was supplemented by an exciting online game where you could collect clues, do missions, and even win prizes. Plus, all my friends were reading it.
Most of my friends dropped out of reading the series after the first couple of books, but after five years I’m still with it! The series has honestly grown kind of long-in-the-tooth now; certainly nothing like those exciting times when we were all trying to figure out the mysteries of this exciting new world.
Still, for young kids the series is still going strong with the new subseries Unbreakable, with mostly the same cast of characters but new villains and new adventures. For kids who like the later 39 clues books and want to play catchup, the Maze of Bones is a good place to start.
Summary
In the Maze of Bones we meet Dan and Amy Cahill, the main characters. They are orphans under the care of their aunt, Beatrice Cahill. Beatrice doesn’t take very good care of them, however, and merely hires au pairs to look after them.
Unfortunately, their cool grandmother Grace Cahill recently died, and Amy and Dan are attending the funeral. Grace was awesome and Amy and Dan used to spend the weekends at her house. They are sad because there isn’t going to be any fun in their lives anymore.
Amy and Dan are called with Beatrice and other relatives into a reading of Grace Cahill’s will. In a video Grace recorded, she makes an astonishing announcement. The Cahill’s are a very powerful family and the source of the family’s power is divided into 39 clues. Anyone who collects these clues will become the most powerful person in the world. Grace gives her descendants a choice: A million dollars or one clue.
Amy and Dan aren’t sure what to do. They feel as though perhaps Grace wanted them to enter the challenge, but they also don’t want to be stupid and give up $2 million. They realize, however, that Beatrice will find a way to steal their money if they choose to accept it. Amy and Dan are miserable and want something different. They choose the clue.
Amy is 14 and Dan is 10, quite young to start a quest. Beatrice is extremely upset with their decision to enter the clue hunt and runs out of the room, saying something about disowning them. There are in total six teams who enter the race for the clues.
The clue reads: RESOLUTION. The fine print to guess, Seek out Richard S______. No one seems to know what that means, but the teams start going out in search of the clues.
Amy and Dan team up with their relative Alistair Oh to try and figure out the clue, and they realize that Richard S. must be a reference to Poor Richard’s Almanac. They look for it in Grace’s library, but there is a fire and Grace’s mansion burns down. They barely make it out alive with Grace’s cat Saladin.
Realizing that the clue has to do with Benjamin Franklin, they head to Boston. Their au pair, Nellie, agrees to drive them there. Unfortunately, the other teams are also in Boston, and the Starling triplets try to kill Amy and Dan. Unfortunately for them, they end up wounding themselves.
Amy and Dan are smart, but are they smart enough to beat people like Irina Spasky, an ex-KGB agent who has poison in her fingernails? What about the Holt family, a group of muscular brutes? Or Ian and Natalie Kabra, rich and also carrying poison. How will they fare against Jonah Wizard, a rap star with more fans and money than anyone needs?
Amy and Dan also realize there are family branches. The branches are Tomas, Ekaterina, Lucian, and Janus. Amy and Dan have no clue what branch they’re in, a problem that haunts them through the end of the series.
The hunt eventually ends up taking Amy and Dan to Paris, and the French catacombs. It is a very exciting and thrilling story.
Review
The Maze of Bones is a great introductory book to the series. It sets the stage and gets everyone excited for the adventures that are to come. It does a good job of character development; with Amy and Dan’s conniving relatives, and also of Amy and Dan. Amy and Dan are very relatable. They have no resources in the hunt but their own smarts. They are innocent people placed into a dangerous game.
The writing style of this book is a little more informal than the other books, and I consider that a good thing. Every author has their own style, and Riordan certainly has a good one. Another good thing about the book is that it contains a lot of good historical information. I still use information that I read The 39 Clues to this day.
I consider the main strength of this book to be that Riordan is able to combine exciting action with character development. Usually you hear of plot-based stories, or character-based stories, but this book is both. I think that is the main thing missing from the later books, where the characters of Amy and Dan are still good, but nowhere near the captivating level in the earlier books.
Part of the excitement of reading The Maze of Bones at the time was that it was the first book in a new series, there was an online game, everyone was reading it, and we were going to have to wait to find out the secrets. Yes, it tormented us at the time, but it was actually a great thing!
There is no question that reading The Maze of Bones now is not as captivating as in the past. You don’t have the community surrounding the earlier books anymore, and there isn’t nearly the same excitement with all the books out. After all, people who have read the latest book, Nowhere to Run, already know that Amy and Dan come out okay in the end.
Also, in September, 2008, the books were coming out every three months. One False Note was in December, and The Sword Thief followed in March. It was manageable, therefore, to read all of the books. Now, however, they’ve been coming out at the same rate for five years. There were ten books in the original series, a connecting book, six books in the second series, and now a third series that is churning out more books.
Most of the books are about 200 pages long, so to play catchup and read all of the old books is a possibility, but it’s unlikely unless you or your child is a very prolific reader.
Either way, The Maze of Bones is a fantastic book. If you or your child is really addicted to The 39 Clues, then reading The Maze of Bones is good idea. It will be a good book to read and you’ll probably like it a lot. Most likely, though, you’ll peter out a couple books after that unless you’re a big 39 clues lover.
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