Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Name: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
Author: Rick Riordan

by Rick Riordan

Ages 9–12 Reading age 10 Novel Set in somewhere magical adventurousfunny

Twelve-year-old Percy learns his absent father is a Greek god, and is sent across America to return a stolen thunderbolt before the gods go to war.

A story about children and magical creatures, adventurous and funny in tone. We would put it with children of 9–12, and at a reading age of about 10 for reading alone.

Worth knowing before you buy

Battles and fighting
Mild peril

None of this makes it a bad book — often the opposite. It is here so you can decide whether it is right for your child now or in a year or two.

Part of a series

This is book 1 of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, so there is more to read if it goes down well — which is worth a great deal with a reluctant reader.

Our take on this book

Percy is a twelve-year-old who keeps getting expelled and cannot sit still, and it turns out there is a reason: he is the son of a Greek god, and someone has stolen Zeus's master lightning bolt and pinned the blame on him. He has ten days to cross America, return it and stop a war on Olympus. Rick Riordan's trick is to drop the full machinery of Greek myth into modern America — Medusa runs a garden statuary, the underworld is under Los Angeles — and narrate it in the wisecracking voice of a boy who finds the whole thing as ridiculous as it is dangerous. There are monsters, sword fights and real peril, but the tone stays light and funny. It is a particular favourite of readers who have dyslexia or ADHD, partly because Percy does too and it is written as a strength, and it turns reluctant readers into series-devourers.