The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan is the first book in the series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It is a fantasy story in which the gods of Ancient Greece are mixed in with the modern world. For example, World War II is shown to be caused by a war between the gods.
The protagonist, Percy Jackson, lives with his mother, Sally Jackson and his stepfather, Gabe, in New York City. His real father left when he was a baby and he has only a very vague memory of him. Some strange things begin to happen at Yancy Academy, where Percy goes to school. He escapes to a place called Camp Half-Blood. A half-blood is a person one of whose parents is a mortal (an ordinary person) and the other is one of the ancient Greek gods. Percy’s father is Poseidon, the god of the sea. This gives Percy special superpowers in the water.
Percy has to go on a quest to recover the lightning bolt that was stolen from Zeus and the helm of darkness that was stolen from Hades, the ruler of the underworld. His quest takes him to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He is also searching for his mother, who has disappeared. He seeks advice from the Oracle. He has many adventures on his quest. His friends, Annabeth, also a half-blood, and Grover, a satyr, which is a half-goat, half-human, go with him to help him. He even goes to Mount Olympus, which is located high above the Empire State Building in Manhattan.
I usually don’t like fantasy novels at all, but I read this novel because my 10-year-old grandson, Noah, has read the whole series of five books and now he’s reading the next series by Rick Riordan. I wanted to find out why he was so interested in these books. I think it’s because there is lots of action and many surprises in the book. I recommend this book if you want an easy and exciting way to learn a lot about Greek mythology.
No comments:
Post a Comment