The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, 1st Book in the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series, Young Adult, 2005, 375 pages.
Premise:
Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school...again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.
Now Percy and his friends have just 10 days to find and return Zeus's stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief; he must come to terms with the father who abondoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns his of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.
Review:
This was a great adventure and I really enjoyed the Greek mythology. Percy Jackson is a true hero. You get the feeling that even though Percy faces many struggles, he will overcome them all and be able to succeed where others have failed. The premise is wonderful and very creative. They also inject humour throughout the book which makes for a very enjoyable read.
My 11 year old son read the book first and read it quickly as he could not put it down. This was for him, one of his favourite books of all time. He could not wait for me to read it as well so that we could discuss the book. There were so many wonderful and endearing characters that it is hard to pick out the favs but the 3 main characters are so well developed, loveable and interesting that it is hard not to love them. Percy, Annabeth and Grover are a very funny trio.
We are planning on seeing the movie and will let you know how closely they came to reproducing all of the action as we read about in the book.
I am certainly planning to read the entire series so that I can have many book discussions with my boys. A truly delightful read.
Rating 4 out of 5
My son has been working on this book. I was hoping he would be done with it here in time for the movie. But they have been out of school with this crazy snow all week, this would have been a great time to read, but the book is in school as they need to have books for reading time. I want to read this book after he is done so we can talk about it. I also told him I want to hear his comparison to the movie when we go see it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great review. It definitely sounds like a great book to share with the kids.