Book Review: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Saksham Mathur, age 13, is a student of class VII at Anand Niketan International School, Ahmedabad. He is deeply interested in science and its mysteries.

Saksham loves outings to exotic places. He is very fond of playing cricket and table tennis. In his free time, Saksham likes to dabble in creativity and finer arts. He also enjoys speaking from public platforms.

About the book

Title: The Lightning Thief (Book #1 in the series Percy Jackson and the Olympians)
Author: Rick Riordan
Publisher: Puffin (an imprint of Penguin Random House India)
Publication: 2013 (First edition published 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0141346809
Pages: 400 (Paperback)
Price: Rs. 399
Website: http://rickriordan.com/book/the-lightning-thief/

Description
Percy Jackson thinks he is an ordinary 12-year old boy. When he learns the identity of his real father, his world changes forever and every Greek myth comes alive to drag him into their reality.

Percy Jackson and Lightning Thief is the first in a series of fantasy novels which begins Percy's foray into the world of the Gods. It was adapted into a 2010 hit movie entitled: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

The next books in the series in reading order are: The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian.

Author

Rick Riordan is a bestselling author of over twenty novels for young readers, including the Percy Jackson series, the Kane Chronicles, the Magnus Chase series and the Trials of Apollo. He is also the author of 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. While teaching in San Antonio, Saint Mary’s Hall honored him with the school’s first Master Teacher Award.

Riordan turned to children’s fiction when he started The Lightning Thief as a bedtime story for his oldest son. The novel draws on Riordan’s experience teaching Greek mythology and his
interaction with students who have learning differences. It is his first work for young readers.

Rick Riordan now writes full-time. He lives in Boston with his wife and two sons.

Book Review

I want everyone to lap up the Riordan Collection.

Rick Riordan has managed to attract many young readers with his engrossing and fast-paced books. I think that his unique selling point is the fact that he merges the modern world with the world of Greek mythology. Greek mythology by itself can be very dull, but by relating the story to modern times, the audience easily connects to the story, and readers start loving his books.

In ‘Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief’, the first book of the series, Riordan introduces us to Percy Jackson, the main character of the series.

Percy Jackson is a demigod, but he doesn’t know that in the beginning. As the story moves forward, he finds out about the crazy world of Greek gods and monsters, and goes to a “camp”, a safe haven for demigods, where they spend their time training and learning how to survive in this monster-infested world.

Riordan has given all the gods a personality that matches the modern world. Poseidon spends his free time wearing shorts and sunglasses at the beach, sipping pina colada. Aphrodite loves to look beautiful and applies the best makeup she can find.

After we are introduced to a few gods and demigods, the plot thickens. Percy is accused of stealing Lord Zeus’s divine thunderbolt, a special weapon that had been made for the King of the gods themselves. So, Percy, along with his new friends, goes on a perilous quest, fighting monsters, and eventually finding out who the real thief was.

The book is unlike anything I have read. The amazing thing is that children of all age groups can enjoy his books.

After you finish the Percy Jackson series, his other interconnecting books make this fantastic world even more interesting. Bits and pieces join together, making the end really marvellous. I would highly recommend all his books. They are a must read. It’s good stuff.