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The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: Rick Riordan
Publisher: Miramax
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Rating:  257 reviews
Sales Rank: 1014
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 392
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0786838655
EAN: 9780786838653
ASIN: 0786838655
Publication Date: April 1, 2006
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Condition: New - Has remainder mark. Fast shipping from trusted wholesaler with many exclusive publisher contracts.*
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Product Description
Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can t seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy s mom finds out, she knows it s time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he ll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 Like a Hipper Harry Potter May 19, 2006
bensmomma (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
98 out of 101 found this review helpful
There's always the "what to read while waiting for the next HP" question for some of us, but...now don't get upset folks - I like Harry Potter as much as you do - "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" has a modern, hip, even urban style that people weary of Harry's earnest heroism may actually PREFER.
Plus, people with an interest in legends and myths will bug their eyes out with excitement, because the premise of "Percy Jackson" is that there are a handful of kids who are in fact the children of Greek gods and goddesses, who had come down to dally with modern Americans. These kids, called "half-bloods" in the book, grow up not knowing their origins, alienated by their disjointed lives and absent parents. (A nice conceit of the book is that many half-bloods have dyslexia, but only because their minds are wired for ancient Greek, and ADHD, but only because their minds are wired for hunting, a notion that should give a lot of comfort to real kids with these real problems.) But there are forces of darkness - monsters - whose aim it is to destroy such kids. They are only protected at a special camp - "Camp Half-Blood." Percy, who turns out to be a son of Poseidon, lands at this camp, but must eventually leave it and risk the monsters, to fulfill a Quest.
Even on the basis of this short description you can see there are a lot of superficial similarities to the Potter books - an orphan, with supernatural powers, who has two friends (one brainy girl and one geeky sidekick), several envious rival students. He goes to a special school and learns he is highly skilled at the school's favorite sport (in this case chariot racing). He is personally charged with a quest that, should he fail, will result in the ruin of the world.
Author Rick Riordan almost seems to be teasing the audience with these similarities - but he's having fun with it, and his style and humor are refreshing, humorous, and quite different from Rowling's. (He gets to the point MUCH faster - the action starts on page 1 and never stops!) My 12-year-old son, to be honest, prefers this, and identifies with it more readily. It's a clever enough read for adults to enjoy. Highly, highly recommended.
Who's yo' Daddy? May 6, 2007
Amanda Richards (Georgetown, Guyana)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Percy Jackson has always been different from other kids. He's dyslexic and suffers from ADHD, and is always getting into trouble. He's been expelled several times, and the only thing that holds his interest is Greek mythology.
We soon learn that Percy has close ties with Mount Olympus, and when monsters from mythology start popping up looking for his blood, he ends up at a very special school for kids like himself, where he starts to put things together to find out who he really is.
Before he knows it, he's off on a quest with his two friends, Grover and Annabeth, to recover a powerful lightning bolt, property of Zeus, which has been stolen, supposedly by Percy himself. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades are having a little disagreement about the theft of the said lightning bolt, and unless Percy can retrieve it and return it in time, the resulting fallout will have earth-shattering consequences.
This great (albeit relatively unknown) first book of the series is an easy read, and is sure to encourage young readers to improve their knowledge of Greek mythology, especially the stories of the Minotaur, Medusa and the gods Poseidon, Ares, Zeus, Hades, Kronos, Athena and so on. Highly recommended for young readers in search of an original and imaginative adventure series.
Amanda Richards
Fantastic Thrill Ride April 15, 2007
Mel Odom (Moore, OK USA)
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
I held off buying THE LIGHTNING THIEF for a couple years. The market seems glutted with YA fantasy at the moment, and I read quite a bit of it with my 9-year-old. We've discovered several good series, but THE LIGHTNING THIEF seemed too long to hold his attention when it first came out.
This year we noticed it in the book fair at school, then saw that it was an Accelerated Reader book. So I picked it up and read a couple chapters to try it out. I was 50 pages into it when I realized I needed to be reading this to my son.
I did read it to him. We FLEW through the book (375 pages!) in 6 days because he kept pestering me to read it to him. We finished it up in a 5-hour marathon yesterday, hanging onto every page as Percy and his friends tried to save the world and put things to rights in their own lives.
THE LIGHTNING THIEF is a great book for adults and kids. I've already recommended it to a couple of adult friends who experienced the same kind of can't-put-it-down pull that I did.
Percy Jackson, the hero of the book, comes across as every kid you'd ever meet or ever would. He's no brainiac (he has dyslexia and ADHD) but he has friends who are. But he is courageous and clever, stubborn and loyal. He is the best he can be, and he's getting even better.
Riordan works in many of the Greek myths in the novel. There was a time when knowing Greek mythology was a pre-requisite for having a "classical" education. Many morals and philosophies are presented in the tales.
From the very beginning of the novel, we find out Percy is different when he ends up fighting a harpy in the museum while on a school trip. He's been kicked out of 6 schools in 6 years, lives with his mom and step-dad, Smelly Gabe, an evil guy who deliberately makes Percy's life hard.
Then, when he's on a well-deserved vacation with his mom, he finds out he's a Half-Blood, the son of one of the Greek gods. But his mom doesn't know who his dad was and that's just one of the mysteries Percy ends up solving.
The cool part of the book is peeling away all the mysteries of Percy's life and who really took Zeus's magic thunderbolt. Along the way he gains powers that set my son's head to spinning with hope and delight. Percy's a superhero without the costume, and there are plenty of villains in his world.
Riordan is a teacher who obviously loves kids as well as the subject matter. The Greek gods were a cantankerous lot, and Riordan delivers them well. Not only does he give his readers the stories, but he also brings the gods on stage and gives them personalities.
The series is supposed to run for 5 books. I think it will go on longer. I hope so. I've already ordered books 2 and 3, and my son and I are looking forward to them. The books take a while to read outloud to younger readers, but the effort is well rewarded. The story is rich and deep, and will keep your child's attention. In addition, you'd be surprised how much you can talk about even when you're not reading. And your child may just want to wander around the internet learning more interesting facts about Greek mythology.
THE LIGHTNING THIEF is well worth reading and is probably in most public and school libraries.
Richie's Picks: THE LIGHTNING THIEF July 6, 2006
Richie Partington (Sebastopol, CA United States)
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
" 'Like it or not -- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either -- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here.'
"It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.
" 'Who are you, Chiron? Who...who am I?'
Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up and out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.
" 'Who are you,' he mused. 'Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate.' "
If I were to discuss the Boy Scouts of America, there would certainly be some harsh sentiments that I'd have to express, both in regard to the national organization and, also, in regard to my own recollections of having been an adolescent member. But among the Scouting experiences about which I have only positive memories are the couple of weeks each summer during the late Sixties that I spent at Woodworth Lake Scout Reservation in upstate New York.
Woodworth Lake was encountered at the end of the five-hour bus trip that would always commence at the crack of dawn from the Long Island suburb where I was growing up. Mornings at Woodworth Lake would begin with our trekking from our respective lakeside campgrounds to the dining hall where one member of each assigned table had arrived even earlier in order to set the table and serve as that day's waiter. The days would end after dark, with all of the groups in attendance at the camp coming together in a natural amphitheater location to perform skits for one another and to join together in song. (Thirty years later at circle time, I'd think back warmly to those campfire evenings as I taught preschoolers to sing such camp memories as "Waltzing Matilda," "Yellow Submarine," and "There's a Hole in the Bucket, Dear Liza.")
In between the morning and evening festivities, I'd get to tackle projects of my choosing that would lead to merit badges, swim in the bracing cold lake, hike for miles with my buddies, and swat mosquitoes. Woodworth Lake was where I learned to row well enough to be able to subsequently conquer the substantial winds and tides of Northport Bay and Huntington Harbor. It was the location of contests where a Crisco-covered watermelon would be tossed into the lake between two competing camp groups, or where late-night scavenger hunts were occasionally conducted, with success leading to coupons that were redeemed for tasty midnight snacks. And then there was that night in 1969 when we all sat together inside the canteen and stared in awe as Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
Sure, there were plenty of guys with whom I became friendly over those years, as a result of attending patrol and troop meetings back at home. But there was a whole different bonding that developed between those of us who spent afternoons together, developing skits for the evening campfire, and mornings together, waking up hours away from our families and familiar living patterns.
I'm currently sitting up in bed, hours from home, the only light coming from the laptop in my lap. It's an hour before sunrise, and there's a freight train whistle in the distance -- something we stopped hearing in our part of the world decades ago. Sunrise will lead me and Shari back out to the gorgeous Sierra lakes, trails, and vistas that we're experiencing this week. Traveling hours away from home in order to wander through and over mountains is clearly one of those learned behaviors resulting from my summer camp experiences.
Although Percy Jackson's summer camp experience clearly shares some similarities with mine, as well as with those of most adolescents venturing away from home and habit, it would be safe to say that Percy's summer camp experience at Half-Blood Hill (beginning shortly after the incident in which he unwittingly vaporizes his pre-algebra teacher) also involves quite a few dissimilarities from the summer camp norm:
"We must have been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the ocean, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture -- an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena -- except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings."
In the wake of a horrifying series of experiences at the end of the school year, Percy Jackson, a self-described "troubled" kid, finds himself at Half-Blood Hill. And he comes to find out that his dyslexia, his attention deficit disorder, his mediocrity in school, his knack for inevitably causing disaster on school field trips, all stems from his being the product of a relationship between a mortal and a Greek god.
"Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways."
Teaming up with a satyr named Grover and a bright girl named Annabeth (The author repeatedly teases readers with subtle allusions to HP.), Percy Jackson sets out with his new-found powers on a quest to...
" 'So let me get this straight,' I said. 'I'm supposed to go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead.'
" 'Check,' Chiron said.
" 'Find the most powerful weapon in the universe.'
" 'Check.'
" 'And get it back to Olympus before the Summer Solstice, in ten days.'
" 'That's about right.'
"I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.
" 'Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?' he asked weakly.' "
Filled with out-of-this-world adventures, and chapter titles like, "I Play Pinochle with a Horse," "I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom," and "I Ruin a Perfectly Good Bus," Percy Jackson's search for himself is the ultimate summer camp experience.
GREAT READ November 15, 2006
MISTER SJEM (CALIF BAY AREA United States)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
If you like Harry Potter, you will probably like this book, too. Come to think of it, if you do not like HP, you may still like this book. Recommended reading ages are grades 5-9 but if you're younger and like to read this book may very well be fine . . . and, this book is actually written well enough for adults to enjoy as well.
Tale focuses on a 12 year old boy named Percy who isn't getting along with just about everyone in school and soon discovers part of his problems are related to the fact that he's the son of the Greek God, Poseidon, which leads him to a training camp for Half-Bloods/Demigods and then a quest to stop the Zeus and Poseidon from tearing the whole world apart.
PROS
(1)Told in first person narrative and therefore flows particularly well.;
(2) Hip and cutting edge enough, focusing on popular, trendy spots like Las Vegas, at one point, for instance.;
(3) Well detailed info on mythology so one could learn a lot without cracking open a mythology book. A lot of the details are woven into the story rather than just told to you.;
(4) Some really funny lines or events;
(5) Well established relationship with his mortal mother;
(6) Some good action scenes that focus on Greek Mythology; and
(7) A few surprised even the veterans of fantasy reading won't spot.
CONS
(1)For adults, if you don't like archetypes and standard story archetypes, you may find this a bit predictable in certain parts. Remember that it's written for young readers.; and
(2) Percy tends to fall into a few jams because he doesn't think things through. He's twelve so I suppose he gets some slack for that but then he also does some smart things so judge it as you will.
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