Book Review: The Lightning Thief - Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Rick Riordan is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Percy Jackson and the Olympians series for children and the multi-award-winning Tres Navarre mystery series for adults. For fifteen years, Rick taught English and history at public and private middle schools in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Texas. In 2002, Saint Mary’s Hall honored him with the school’s first Master Teacher Award.

The Lightning Thief is the First book in a Five part Series called ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’. This first book has already been made into a movie. I have not seen the movie, but it does not appear to have done particularly well in the Box Office. Perhaps I will pick it up on Blu-Ray and check it out and review it.

Onto the book. The Lightning Thief is an introduction to a world very much like our modern world. There is one major difference, but 99.99% of the population cannot see it. The difference is that The Greek gods, titans and monsters are still alive! Mount Olympus is the center of western civilization, and it moves when the mortal ‘center of western civilization’ moves. In the book Mount Olympus is hidden about a half-mile above the Empire State Building. The Gods and Goddesses are as sexually active as ever, and there are lots of Half-Blood children from just about every god. All of these children are in danger, for monsters will hunt them down and try to kill them. The Gods created Camp Half-Blood to protect and train the children so they can survive, and it is now located on the east end of Long Island. The book also introduces us to Percy Jackson, a dyslexic delinquent with a penchant for getting himself into trouble. He was kicked out of every school he has ever attended. He has a great mother, but his step father is horrible. One might consider him evil, but he is just too lazy to be quite that bad. Percy is also a very special child, with a very special future.

In the first chapter, Percy is at his latest school. He has lasted there almost the whole year, and he has even done well in one class, Ancient Greek! He is with his friend Grover and the rest of his class on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The book does not take long to jump into the action, and soon Percy once again gets into trouble. However, instead of the typical detention his Math teacher takes him deep into the Museum and attacks him! Fortunately, the teacher of his Ancient Greek class was able to toss him a pen that turned into a sword and he was able to kill his math teacher with it! Percy was horrified as his teacher turned into Gold dust and disappeared. Percy freaks out, but the next day the math teacher is replaced and as far as everyone is concerned nothing happened and that teacher was always the math teacher! There are too many strange things happening at once, even for Percy, and he starts to investigate what happened. 

Thus is the start of both Percy’s and the readers introduction to the Modern world of Ancient Greece! Grover is actually a Satyr. Percy is the son of a God and he gets brought to Camp Half-Blood where he meets lots of campers and teachers including Mr. D, Chiron the Centaur who masqueraded as Percy’s teacher of Ancient Greek, and Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena. Percy soon earns the right to go on a quest, along with Grover and Annabeth, and learns much about his heritage and his destiny.

I loved reading this book. I was always interested in Mythology, and have a love of Greek Mythology. This book brings to life all the ancient and modern tales of Greek Quests, integrating comedy and tragedy in a lively tale that will entertain all. It is written to entertain children, yet it uses the Ancient Greek names for all the monsters/gods/titans and does a great job of outlining the myths about them. I recommend this book to anyone who loves ancient history or fantasy stories!

Title: The Lightning Thief – Percy Jackson and the Olympians – Book 1
Author: Rick Riordan
ISBN#: 978-0641723445
Format: Hardcover

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