Saturday, January 3, 2009

One False Note

Hey, everyone, this is Carl, welcoming 2009 with my first review of the year. And what better book to start the year than One False Note by Gordon Korman, the second book in The 39 Clues series. This one finds Dan and Amy Cahill, with their au pair Nelllie Gomez, traveling to Vienna, Salzburg, (in Austria) and Venice to track down the next mysterious clue left by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I turns out, though, that Mozart had a sister Nannerl that was as brilliant as he was. The location of the clue is in her diary, but the megastar rapper Jonah Wizard has already gotten hold it. And that's just the start of their troubles! They have to outsmart their incredibly rich, sinister, and tricky Cahill relatives, jump out of hotel windows, survive an underground cave-in, and out race the bad guys in the canals of Venice. Does this sound exciting? It is!! In fact, I missed the stop on my bus ride home last night because I was so totally into the story!!! You'll enjoy it a lot. Now I will have to say that I liked the first one better--there seemed to be more danger and suspense, but his is a minor detail. I liked this one a lot and I bet you will too. I have one criticism though--in an early chapter, Dan and Amy debate wheteher or not they should steal Nannerl Mozart's diary from Jonah Wizard's hotel room. They talk back and forth over whether or not it's right to steal and finally decide that they should do it. This is the kind of thing grownups love to do. They love to complicate things. A lot of grownups have bought into the idea of "situational ethics", which basically means that nothing is right or wrong in itself; the situation determines whether something or right or wrong. Don't believe it guys--we know deep in our guts what's right and what's not. Does that mean the author sat down and tried to write a book to get us to believe it? Of course not. But some grownups will and you guys should be aware of it. Besides, this was an unwelcome intrusion in good book. That whole discussion could have been left out and it wouldn't have made the slightest difference.  But, as I said, these are minor criticisms of a really good story. The next book, The Sword of Thieves, comes out on March 3. Ohhhhhh, boy!! I'll be ready!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, I love that book!!!!! I'm waiting for my birthday (end of march)to read the 3'rd book. My favorite part was when those guys that they stole the recipe from chased them until Nellie got them. I signed up to the website and have a lot of cards. I also like the part where the kids took the thing from Saladin's neck and put it in Alister Oh's cane.

Moninger said...

I like this book because it really puts a picture in my head while i am reading it. I like the part when they took the book from Jonah Wizard's suite and then they had to jump on to a canvas and then they got back to their hotel room and they were waiting for Nellie to get home.

Moninger said...

Hey, I like this book because it explains what how the kids have to do to win the 39 clues game. It also tells how they got away from the monks. I like it because it tells how the kids got the note and how they got away and got back to the hotel.

Iron Guy Carl said...

I just read the 7th one--The Nest of Vipers--and should have a review up soon. I want to go back and read this one again. And all the others too! Have you gone online to the 39 Clues website? Turns out that I'm a Tomas!

Anonymous said...

I just finished the first one. And I have got to tell you that it was awsome and I loved it.