I am always searching for good book series, books that grip the kids have the start and keep them reading book after book and I have to say this one did not disappoint. It was perfect for my 11 year old son. He devoured book after book, not wanting to put them down.

Percy Jackson starts off as your average kiddo, living in New York, with his mom and struggling at school. He is dyslexic and struggles with his school work (it turns out that actually he struggles because everything is in English and he reads Greek perfectly – a little detail that my son just loved). Anyway his normal life is turned upside down when someone steals Zeus’ lightning bolt and for some reason he gets blamed. He ends up being whisked off to a half-blood camp (kids who have have a Greek God as a parent) where he starts training and learning about his abilities only for that to be interrupted when he decides to go on a quest. And of course the quest involves lots of adventure but is all turns out okay, which of course means he is around for a bunch of other adventures all detailed in the subsequent books.

Both my son and I read all 5 of the books. I started reading them, because I was not sure how I felt about the stories. My son loves Greek Mythology but a lot of Greek Mythology is questionable and can sometimes be a bit too spiritual, in a negative way for us. So I read the first one, loved it and ended up reading the entire series while he chased me to finish them (it was a bit of a competition seeing if I could read the book quick enough for him). Yes there is Greek Mythology, yes they talk about the fact that the kids are born because the Greek Gods have affairs but there is nothing graphic. And although it does deal with Greek creatures and strange mythical events I did not feel like there was a funny spiritual vibe about the books like I have felt with some other stories. For me they were great adventures with a fun twist of kids who have some unusual powers.

I also thought the quality of the writing was excellent. I really appreciate it when kids’ authors write good quality books – books with well crafted, rounded characters, characters who you end up loving but characters who are not perfect and who make mistakes. I loved the way the author described scenes and events, he used some brilliant imagery and powerful words. I really was impressed with the writing and think it is a great example for kids to read (I really do believe if our kids read high quality books it helps them with their own creative writing because they have examples to base their stories on).

My son loved the stories but he does know his Greek Mythology really well and he did pick up that a few of the details in the stories did not quite fit in with the original Greek Myths (honestly I think most kids would not pick this up these small details but for him that was the one thing he did find fault with the books). He did however say that if there were more books in the series he would have happily read more (which is a big compliment coming from him as he often reaches his limit of books around the 4th or 5th).

If you have a kiddo around 10/ 11 (and older) who loves a good adventure and finds mythical creatures interesting then this series is going to be a massive hit. Both my son and I highly recommend it.

Admin – This is just a post about some books that my son LOVED and that I think are really well written.