Books Are Timeless, Gimmicks Aren’t

I’ve heard much news lately about Scholastic and their latest venture, a new series called “The 39 Clues,” which is supposed to replace the business lost as the Harry Potter series has wound to a close. I have to admit, I’m not particularly impressed. The “Clues” series will be ten books, each of which will reveal one clue. Since I trust that my readers are masters of observation, I’m sure you noticed that that leaves out quite a few clues.

The rest, you’re supposed to discover by playing card games and online games. Not merely a book series, “The 39 Clues” is supposed to be a full-fledged, cross-merchandised, multi-platform phenomenon. Scholastic is hoping for a huge success with this manufactured excitement over its venture. They’re hoping to revolutionize the world of reading with this whole thing … but they’re not presenting a story meant to endure.

The simple truth is that, no matter what, excitement will fade in time. Even if the books remain popular, there will come a time when it isn’t worth maintaining web sites and card games … the story will lose much of its appeal.

The Harry Potter novels will remain popular, because they don’t rely on cross-merchandising. People bought other products because they loved the books. For decades, readers have been thrilled by the Lord of the Rings, the Narnia Chronicles, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, the Little House series, the Dark is Rising sequence, and many other books written with ink on paper. The stories are compelling, and they’re fun and exciting to read. They will remain so for decades to come.

I’m reading John Christopher’s Tripods trilogy to my sons … this makes the fourth time that I’ve read them, roughly twenty years after the first time. I’m passing many of my books on to my sons, because the books can be read and enjoyed even years after they were first published. I don’t see how “The 39 Clues” can possibly maintain the same appeal when their marketing tie-ins fade away.

In fairness, I do have to admit that I’m saying this without having read even the first book. Still, Scholastic’s plan is for a marketing coup, not a timeless and enduring piece of writing. Whatever the shortcomings of their involvement with the His Dark Materials series, one can hardly argue that the stories weren’t interesting and well-written. (Not really written for children, mind you, but they were well-written.)

My brothers and I have each pilfered our parents’ basement of the books that we read as kids. We’re sharing them with our own kids, and reliving those adventures and those memories. A Wrinkle in Time was new again as I read it to my sons three years ago (By the way — avoid that movie at all costs!), it was a delight to have my son begging for “one more chapter” out of the Prydain Chronicles (don’t even mention the so-called  “Black Cauldron” movie, though) before bed, and The Phantom Tollbooth was as good more than two decades after I’d read it myself (that movie, on the other hand, is actually worth seeing … not as a substitute for the book, of course, but it’s not bad).

In the beginning of the movie “The Princess Bride,” Peter Falk tells Fred Savage, “When I was your age, cartoons were called books.” I wonder if Scholastic is trying to turn books into something more like cartoons.