Percy Jackson and the Olympians – the Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan

First impressions

When Xander told me Percy Jackson and the Olympians – the Lighting Thief is a book you should read, my expectations were quite high. He said it was a about the Greek Gods and I was interested immediately. I used to study Greek in my second year of secondary school, so I knew some things about the myths and demigods of the Greek culture. 

I’m glad Xander told me about this book because I enjoyed reading it. It was interesting, full of action and readable as well. The book made me interested in the other novels about Percy Jackson and his adventures.

Insights after discussing the book in class

In class we focussed on the elements of a quest. In Fantasy books the characters go on quests all the time, this book is no exception. The first element of a quest is the call. In the group we all had different thoughts about when the actual call happened. Some thought it was when Percy’s mom drove him to Half-blood Camp, some thought the call right after Percy’s fight with the Minotaur(which was my guess as well). I looked it up in the book, and the actual call for the quest was neither of the two. Chapter  7 is called ‘I am offered a quest’ . In that chapter Dionysus and Chiron tell him about the theft of the lightning bolt. In conclusion we can say that this is a bit ambiguous.  In the powerpoint of this week’s class on the Sharepointsite, we can find the following: “An event, sometimes traumatic, leads to adventure or quest”. The dead of Percy’s mother could be the begin of the quest.

The rest of the story is not that hard to figure out. The journey is about retrieving the lightning bolt. During the journey he faces multiple obstacles, all of them are enemies who want Percy to bring the bolt to Hades instead of Zeus.  His first obstacle, or enemy, is his teacher, Mrs. Dodds. “She wasn’t human. She was a shrivelled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.” (Riordan, 2005)

The Final ordeal is fight with Hades in the Underworld. That’s when Percy retrieved the lightning bolt to bring it back to Zeus.

Relating the Theory to the Book

This book has multiple features related to the theory in the given sources.  First of all, this story has an amazing plot which children will enjoy reading. According to Maass, in great novels "what happens to the characters in the course of the story is unusual, dramatic, and meaningful. A great story involves great events." The events are clearly unusual and dramatic. Percy himself cannot even imagine the Greek Gods are real. "But they're stories," I said. "They're myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science." (Riordan, 2005, p. 73)

Percy has not experienced anything like this, so this is a very natural thought of him.

In Percy Jackson and the Olympians – the Lighting Thief, the reader is not only a spectator, but an participant as well. “It involves a total immersion in the experience, so that the distinction between the subject and the object of the experience breaks down.” (Appelyard, unknown, p. 101). The setting is odd which makes it interesting for adolescents. Also, Percy is the average Joe, so a lot of children will identify themselves with him. It’s like the reader is walking beside the characters who think out loud.

Age suitability

In my opinion this book is suitable for 14-18 year olds. The book has some characters who pretend they’re good, but at the end, are not. A 9-year-old kid would be devastated about this . For them, a character should be either bad or good, not both. (Appelyard, The reader as hero or heroine, Unknown). Also, the storyline would probably be too difficult to follow for the younger readers. They read a couple of events instead of the adolescents who read is a logical story.

681 words.

is a book you should read, my expectations were quite high. He said it was a about the Greek Gods and I was interested immediately. I used to study Greek in my second year of secondary school, so I knew some things about the myths and demigods of the Greek culture. 

I’m glad Xander told me about this book because I enjoyed reading it. It was interesting, full of action and readable as well. The book made me interested in the other novels about Percy Jackson and his adventures.

681 words. 

Sources:

Appelyard, The reader as Thinker
Appelyard, The reader as hero or heroine
Riordan, R.,(2005), Percy Jackson and the Olympians - The Lightning Thief