Jan 16 2012 at 9pm / 4 notes
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cannonball read / review 03 / The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan “Yer a half-blood, Percy.” - nobody in this book, at least not literally Harry Potter’s obviously changed the world of fiction for the better. (Hey, anything that gets non-reader kids to love books is cool with me. Except Twilight.) I can’t help but wonder, though, if Harry Potter hadn’t been written, would the world of YA fiction be a little more, shall we say, diverse? I mean, it must be hard, as a talented writer of books for young people, to stand up to one’s editor and say “I don’t want to write a story about a young boy who discovers he’s The One and has to battle a series of magical creatures alongside his plucky young lady friend and hapless young guy friend. I want to write about anything else.” But kids and Chosen Ones and magic are now a proven formula. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Rowling wrote the book on this formula - ha, ha - but she certainly brought it front-and-center recently.) I’m late to the Percy Jackson party, so as a very brief summary to the six of you who haven’t read the books - and without really spoiling anything - Percy is a precocious though academically troubled twelve-year-old who learns over the course of one magical summer that the world is much grander than he imagined, and that he must play a special part in saving it. He teams up with Annabeth, an athletic and brave young woman with daddy issues, and Grover, a shaggy well-meaning teenager, to travel across the country and unravel the mystery behind a brewing war before it’s too late. The Lightning Thief was a quick (I mean it - 377 pages in just under four hours, which was fast, even for me) and enjoyable read. It’s the first in a series of five (plus a book 4.5, plus some Silmarillion-like companion volume) which has its own sequel series of five that’s only partway released. (Plus a 2010 movie directed by Chris Columbus [who directed the first two Potter films] which didn’t even make back its budget, despite which a second movie is in development. But I digress.) If I had a twelve-year-old kid of my own who had finished the Potter series and wanted a little light reading as a cool-down, I’d certainly point her to this. It’s not particularly challenging - academically, linguistically, morally, or otherwise - and I’d imagine any young critical thinker would see all the major plot points coming a long ways out, but it was fun. I appreciated Riordan’s relentless didactic drilling of ancient history, Greek and Roman mythology, and his tongue-in-cheek treatment of their role in his version of our world. The book gets a solid three stars - not exceptional, but if you’re a fan of the oh-so-Potter-popular “smart kid saves the world” genre, certainly worth four hours of your time. See it at goodreads.

cannonball read / review 03 / The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

“Yer a half-blood, Percy.” - nobody in this book, at least not literally

Harry Potter’s obviously changed the world of fiction for the better. (Hey, anything that gets non-reader kids to love books is cool with me. Except Twilight.) I can’t help but wonder, though, if Harry Potter hadn’t been written, would the world of YA fiction be a little more, shall we say, diverse?

I mean, it must be hard, as a talented writer of books for young people, to stand up to one’s editor and say “I don’t want to write a story about a young boy who discovers he’s The One and has to battle a series of magical creatures alongside his plucky young lady friend and hapless young guy friend. I want to write about anything else.” But kids and Chosen Ones and magic are now a proven formula. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Rowling wrote the book on this formula - ha, ha - but she certainly brought it front-and-center recently.)

I’m late to the Percy Jackson party, so as a very brief summary to the six of you who haven’t read the books - and without really spoiling anything - Percy is a precocious though academically troubled twelve-year-old who learns over the course of one magical summer that the world is much grander than he imagined, and that he must play a special part in saving it. He teams up with Annabeth, an athletic and brave young woman with daddy issues, and Grover, a shaggy well-meaning teenager, to travel across the country and unravel the mystery behind a brewing war before it’s too late.

The Lightning Thief was a quick (I mean it - 377 pages in just under four hours, which was fast, even for me) and enjoyable read. It’s the first in a series of five (plus a book 4.5, plus some Silmarillion-like companion volume) which has its own sequel series of five that’s only partway released. (Plus a 2010 movie directed by Chris Columbus [who directed the first two Potter films] which didn’t even make back its budget, despite which a second movie is in development. But I digress.)

If I had a twelve-year-old kid of my own who had finished the Potter series and wanted a little light reading as a cool-down, I’d certainly point her to this. It’s not particularly challenging - academically, linguistically, morally, or otherwise - and I’d imagine any young critical thinker would see all the major plot points coming a long ways out, but it was fun. I appreciated Riordan’s relentless didactic drilling of ancient history, Greek and Roman mythology, and his tongue-in-cheek treatment of their role in his version of our world.

The book gets a solid three stars - not exceptional, but if you’re a fan of the oh-so-Potter-popular “smart kid saves the world” genre, certainly worth four hours of your time. See it at goodreads.

  1. loveallthis posted this