Struthers, W. Middlesex boys win cash with ‘The 39 Clues’

By William k. Alcorn

Frank and Jared are among some 265,000 kids who have joined the online hunt.

As clue finders, two area middle school pupils might just give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.

And money is just what Frank P. Percic, 12, of Struthers, and Jared Germani, 11, of West Middlesex, Pa., have won playing “The 39 Clues” multimedia game.

Frank, in the sixth grade at Struthers Middle School, won $500 for coming in third in the “Book 1: The Maze of Bones” Episode Contest with 163,009 points. He said he was edged out at the end by players from Ontario, Canada, and Marblehead, Mass., who won $1,000 for first with 166,229 points, and $750 with 163,581 points for second, respectively.

Jared, a fifth-grader at Oakview Middle School, is to receive $100 for being among eight third-place winners in the “Book 1” Sweepstakes, in which game cards with code numbers are activated and the winners randomly drawn. Jared, who said he hasn’t played the game every day, said he plans to spend more time playing because of winning the $100 and the potential to win more money.

First-round winners are to receive their winnings by the end of March.

Just as Holmes is famous for using clues and deduction to solve cases, Frank and Jared say that many of “The 39 Clues” games involve clues and test the players’ minds as well as game-playing skills.

“You have to use your brain a lot,” said Frank, who, along with his 10-year-old sister, Laiken, is in their schools’ honors programs.

“The 39 Clues,” launched in Sept. 2008, is a New York Times bestselling multimedia series combining books, collective cards and an online game that lets kids ages 6 through 14 to become part of the story by hunting for clues to win prizes.

Each of the 10 books in the series, written by various authors, is about the fictional Cahill family, the most powerful family in the world. But, the source of the power was lost when Grace Cahill, the last matriarch of the family, changed her will just minutes before she died, leaving her descendants with a decision: Receive $1 million or a clue to the source of the family’s power.

Contestants are assigned to be members of one of the four branches of the Cahill family that are searching for the family treasure: Lucian, Ekaterina, Janus or Tomas. Frank is in the Janus branch, and Jared, Ekaterina.

The game began with “Book 1: The Maze of Bones.” Frank and Jared are among some 265,000 kids who have joined the online hunt, and they were winners in the first round of prizes, which totaled $8,150.

The contest and sweepstakes for the next in the series, “Book 2: One False Note,” ends at 11:59 p.m. Monday, and “Book 3: The Sword Thief” will be released next Tuesday by Scholastic, a global children’s publishing, education and media company. All the 10 books will be released within two years, with the series and online game ending Dec. 31, 2010. A grand prize of $10,000 will go to the ultimate winner, according to Scholastic.

Frank, the son and stepson of Missy and Patrick Ginnetti, said he saw “Book 1” in a bookstore display in September 2008, and his father and stepmother, Frank and Annmarie Percic of Parma, purchased it for him.

Even Laiken said she is thinking about starting the game.

Jared, the son of Denise and Michael Germani, is an avid reader, who said he particularly likes fantasy and adventure books. He saw “Book 1” at a school book fair and wanted it because he recognized the author, Rick Riordan, whose work he had read and liked.

Jared plays soccer, loves building sophisticated Lego projects (his latest is a motorized Star Wars AT-AT Walker), won the fifth-grade spelling bee and plays drums in the school band.

The boys’ parents said they like the reading portion of the game because it pulls their sons off the computer. Though Jared doesn’t spend a lot of time on his computer, Mrs. Ginnetti said Frank spends two or three hours a day several days a week, and he has had a couple of five- to six-hour days when he “had to be dragged off.”

Frank, who is a member of his school’s Destination Imagination team and plays tenor sax in the jazz band at school, said he has finished “Book 2” and is ready to tackle “Book 3.”

“I like solving the mysteries. When you figure out a clue, it’s cool,” he said.