The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

This was a book that I read for CENA, which is the Chesaning High School book club. I missed the meeting last week, but I still finished the book last night, which tells you that I really enjoyed it. Part of the reason is that my friends and I used to be really into Greek mythology. If you sat at our lunch table in high school, you had a Greek god or goddess nickname.

In this book, Percy is a 13 year old boy who has never stayed at one school longer than one year. These huge incidents keep occurring that force him to change schools. At the beginning of the book, the one that occurs is his math teacher tries to kill him on a field trip. Then, after he manages to save himself, killing her in the process, no one, including his friends and other teachers has ever heard of her.

It turns out that Percy is what they used to call a demigod. He is the offspring of a human (his mother) and a Greek god (his father). All of these incidents that have been occurring are monsters that have been sent to kill him by other Greek gods that feel he is a threat. After this latest incident, he manages to make it to Camp Half-Blood, where all demigods and demigoddesses go for the summer for training, since they are constantly being attacked.

There he finds that his best friend and one of the teachers at his last school are actually mythical creatures sent there to guard him. Once at Camp Half Blood, Percy longs to find out which god is his father. This affects what magical abilities he has and which of the other campers are his siblings. Ok, I think I've already said too much, so I'll just add one small thing. Percy and two fellow campers set off on a quest that involves visiting both Mt. Olympus and Hades. All this is set in modern times and the United States. Mt. Olympus is at the top of the Empire State Building in New York City, and the entrance to Hades is located in L.A. Pretty fitting, eh?