I've signed up for an online account, and am told I am a Lucien. Let the hunt begin. One of my 7th grade teachers read aloud the first chapter to her 130 students on Friday. Guess how many requests I have for the book now?

I finished the book last night, have entered one set of cards and unlocked my first clue, and have mastered the first five tasks the online game has presented to me. I wanted to be able to answer student questions about how to play or what was required. I plan to raffle off (for free) the other card sets to interested students and circ the books without cards. I'm planning to display the one card that can be reused by every player in a plastic stand near the computers with the website listed and I'll see what the interest is.

Riordan did a good job of kicking off the series, although I will agree with some other comments that it certainly is predictable in many places (our heroes do all the work to unearth a clue and the rival teams show up just at the right moment to steal it from them...) but I loved the history included. For instance, in their Ben Franklin research the boy learns that Ben wrote a whole essay about the importance of farting (true) and the magic number boxes that Franklin did for fun are part of the game (the kids say, "you mean Franklin invented sudoku?") They're leaving Paris now and are off to Vienna in the next book to follow the clues that lead to Mozart. I'll be there with them.