Skip to main content

Book #34 The Lightning Thief : Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Last week I read the book, The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan which is the first book in a series of books, about humans that are half-human and half-god, they are called half-bloods.

This book brings us back in the world of Greek mythology, and then brings that world into western civilization in the United States. I loved this book, not only for the great writing, action packed plot, and dynamic characters, but because it has a lot of history, facts, myths, and tales rolled up into a fiction novel. I love that as a teacher's viewpoint, students would read this, and then want to read some Greek mythology to better understand characters in the book, circumstances, and innuendos. This story follows a 6th grade boy, Percy Jackson, from a school where he is attacked to Olympus where he.... I'll leave that up to you to find out!

I do have some criticism, Percy Jackson in the book is supposed to go to the Underworld and get the lightning bolt back, and then return it to Zeus to avoid a war, this means he has to travel across the United States on his own, with Gods and Monsters following him, and he's only a 6th grader? I don't think that is a very good age for this character to be, and I'm not sure if the author thought it would be the best age to start, to continue with his next novels in the series, but it doesn't seem plausible to me really. I wish that Percy would have been in 8th or 9th grade, and then I could really see him doing some of the stuff that he does in the book. In the movie version, he does seem a lot older, they don't allude to his age, which makes me think they wanted Percy to be older as well.

The movie version of this was what got me wanting to read the first book. Now that I have read the book though, I think the book is much better. The movie itself seems rushed, more complicated than it needs to be, and not as good with the conflict in the story. They made changes in the plot, in order to better explain it to people who have not watched the movie, but I think that it just made it more confusing, and that they should have just kept it like the book.

All in all though, I really liked the book, and I think that many people would enjoy this series, especially young students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Although, many adults would too!

Rating: (out of seven stars)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Everything Happens For a Reason, I hope!

Just recently, I was turned down for the Teach For America position, that I spent long months applying and preparing for. I can't say that I wasn't disappointed to read the generic "Sorry you did not get it" letter they sent me. It was hard to see my dream of working for Teach For America, and finally being a teacher get dashed, especially with a generic letter. I really had a great feeling about the process, and left the interview feeling like I nailed it. I guess that I didn't impress like I thought I did. I broke down at first from the shock that I didn't get my dream job, and then I cried because I realized how badly I did want it, and how wrong I had been. Later that night I talked to my mom about what had happened, she knew I was upset about missing this opportunity and offered some advice. She said like so many do, "Everything happens for a reason." At first I was annoyed, because I feel that so many people use this logic as a cop-out. But, as...
Post a Comment
Read more

Book # 30 and 31 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass

Over the past few days, I decided to read one of the free books that I downloaded on my nook, to really get a feel of how it is to read on it. One of my free books was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , and the second book Through the Looking-Glass. I've read the first book a few times, but I haven't read the second one yet, and I was curious to see how these books matched up against the popular Disney movies. I love these books, for the magical, imaginative, and interesting quality that they both possess. There are so many elements that are completely odd, and yet they say something about our society, how we name things, why we say certain phrases, etc. They are so quick and on spot, that I don't think children would understand them at first, but as an adult I picked up on so many of them. I've always loved the movie from Disney, but now after reading the two books, I realize that cartoon movie is a combination of the two books. Which is interesting, but I think ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Book # 38 Water for Elephants

Thanks to a co-worker who lent me the book, and friends and family that told me how amazing this book was, I finally read, Water for Elephants , by Sara Gruen. I have been hearing rave reviews from friends, family, coworkers, online sites, and other blogs about this book, and I have to say that I agree whole-heartedly. This is a wonderful book about love, life, the circus, and how connected people can become with each other and animals in such a short time. It's a stunning tale of the carnival and circus people of a time long ago, and how their lives revolved around the circus, the performers, the workmen, the animals, and the crowds. I loved all the characters in this book, and it was really interesting going from the past to the present with the main character. The love between Marlena and Jacob is so wonderful, and pure that it's a great part of this book. I also love how involved and invested Jacob becomes with the animals and some people in the circus. It's a tale of...
2 comments
Read more