Rick Riordan had a good idea when he decided to write the first book in his series "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." The Lightning Thief mixes humor, adventure, and mythology to create a pretty good book.
The story starts with Percy Jackson, a failing student at Yancy Academy in New York, on a field trip with his class to a museum. There, he gets lost and ends up alone with his math teacher, Mrs. Dodds. Instead of being the friendly teacher, she tries to kill him, but Percy gets saved by his Latin teacher. Starnge, huh? But the odd thing is that no one has any recollection of ever having a math teacher named Mrs. Dodds.
Percy goes home, and gets taken by his mom and his friend Grover to a place called Camp Half-Blood. They reveal the shocking truth about his true parentage: his father was a god.
Using knowledge of Ancient Greece and the gods, along with a prophecy and an enticing plot, Riordan made the story good for anyone up to the age of 15. The humor can sometimes be over the top, but is also a good help to the story.
This could have went dreadfully wrong, if the jokes were too dumb, or the allusions to mythology were too few (or too much) or too unrealistic. But this is a good read for mythology and adventure lovers alike.
http://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Thief-Percy-Jackson-Olympians/dp/0786838655/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203116540&sr=1-1
Grade: 8
The story starts with Percy Jackson, a failing student at Yancy Academy in New York, on a field trip with his class to a museum. There, he gets lost and ends up alone with his math teacher, Mrs. Dodds. Instead of being the friendly teacher, she tries to kill him, but Percy gets saved by his Latin teacher. Starnge, huh? But the odd thing is that no one has any recollection of ever having a math teacher named Mrs. Dodds.
Percy goes home, and gets taken by his mom and his friend Grover to a place called Camp Half-Blood. They reveal the shocking truth about his true parentage: his father was a god.
Using knowledge of Ancient Greece and the gods, along with a prophecy and an enticing plot, Riordan made the story good for anyone up to the age of 15. The humor can sometimes be over the top, but is also a good help to the story.
This could have went dreadfully wrong, if the jokes were too dumb, or the allusions to mythology were too few (or too much) or too unrealistic. But this is a good read for mythology and adventure lovers alike.
http://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Thief-Percy-Jackson-Olympians/dp/0786838655/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203116540&sr=1-1
Grade: 8
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