Posted at Entertainment Weekly

The 39 Clues, the interactive, globe-spanning series of young adult novels is drawing to a close. Nearly two years after famed YA author Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) penned the first book, the final entry, Book 10: Into the Gauntlet, will be hitting stores tomorrow. So, in honor of the completion of the best-selling decalogy, EW has conducted a round-robin interview with all of the series’ authors. It works like this: We ask Riordan a question, who then asks Book 2 author Gordon Korman a question, who then asks Book 3 author Peter Lerangis, and so on and so forth. Here’s what they had to say.

Read the rest here – shelf-life.ew.com

Posted at blogs.abcnews.com

President Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia went shopping for books this morning at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore in the picturesque town of Vineyard Haven. Obama and his girls made a beeline upstairs to the children’s book section where they picked out some titles from the ‘The Land of Elyon’ series and “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins. Store employees also say they picked out “The Red Pony” and “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

Read the rest here – blogs.abcnews.com

Book Review by Nancy Knight at BaltimoreSun.com

What are kids reading these days?

When I was young, nothing creeped me out more than a good ghost story. Alvin Schwartz’ “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” series was pretty much perfect: Classic, bare-bones tales that scared or surprised you at different turns — and don’t even get me started on those creepy illustrations by Stephen Gammell.

Of course, that series ended in 1991, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that today’s spooky books are quite a bit different. Beyond the classics-turned-horror stories, ala “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead,” we’ve got the Skeleton Creek series.

Read the rest here – weblogs.baltimoresun.com