New York, NY (February 8, 2010) — Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education, and media company, announced today that it will publish Trackers, the newest multimedia book series created by bestselling author Patrick Carman. Trackers, a combination of book, video, and web experience for middle-grade readers, captures the essence of where and how today’s tech-savvy children are reading. Trackers Book #1 (978-0-545-16500-6; $14.99) will be released on May 11, 2010 with a first printing of 100,000 copies.

“Trackers is a carefully crafted spy thriller designed to meet a wired generation of readers,” says series creator Patrick Carman. “Young readers experience the adventure by reading pages in the book and unlocking online videos of the most action-packed scenes. Videos are accessed about every thirty pages to encourage tech savvy kids to keep turning pages.”

“Trackers is a bold next step in multimedia publishing,” said David Levithan, Editorial Director at Scholastic. “Patrick Carman has seamlessly combined literature and moviemaking into a mysterious thrill ride that’s going to engage legions of young readers. This is twenty-first century storytelling at its finest, and we’re proud to be able to publish across all of our channels.”

In the 21st Century landscape of bits and bytes, everyone leaves a digital footprint—even the most advanced cyber-criminals. And that’s where the Trackers come in. Four tech-savvy kids armed with high-tech video cameras and esoteric coding skills, the Trackers can find almost anyone, anywhere. Told through a collage of videos, text, and Web sites, Trackers #1 follows Adam Finn, Lewis, and Emily as they become entangled in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the world’s most dangerous hacker. Patrick Carman’s PC Studios based in Walla Walla, Washington, held online casting calls to cast the acting roles for the characters who appear in the Trackers videos.

The launch of Trackers follows the February 2009 debut of Carman’s innovative book-video hybrid ghost story Skeleton Creek that introduced kids to a new way of storytelling through a combination of text and videos to tell a seamless, integrated story. To date, there are more than 300,000 copies in print for the first two Skelton Creek books, with a third book planned for fall 2010.

About Patrick Carman:
After visiting more than 1,000 schools nationwide, Patrick Carman understands what captivates kids and how multimedia fits into their daily lives. This led him to develop Skeleton Creek, his first book-video hybrid series. Patrick Carman’s own PC Studios in Walla Walla, Washington, produces the videos for his multimedia projects. Carman is also the author of the Land of Elyon books, which spent over half a year on the New York Times bestseller list, as well as book #5 in the #1 New York Times bestselling multiplatform The 39 Clues series. For more information on Patrick Carman and his various projects, and to download materials, please visit: http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/patrickcarman.

For more information about Scholastic, visit our media room at: http://mediaroom.scholastic.com.

Contacts:
Tracy van Straaten, Vice President of Publicity
Children’s Trade Book Publishing
Scholastic Inc.
212-389-3782
tvanstraaten@scholastic.com


Samantha Wolfert, Publicist
Children’s Trade Book Publishing
Scholastic Inc.
212-389-3786
swolfert@scholastic.com