Book Information

What is the title of the book?

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Who is the author of the book?

Rick Riordan

When was the book published?

March 1, 2006 by Disney Hyperion Books

What genre does the book belong to?

Fantasy, Young Adult, Mythology, Fiction, Middle Grade, Adventure, Greek Mythology

Are there any notable awards or recognitions the book has received?

Young Readers' Choice Award (2008)

Books I Loved Best Yearly (BILBY) Awards for Older Readers (2011)

South Carolina Book Award for Junior Book Award (2008)

Grand Canyon Reader Award for Tween Book (2008)

Nene Award (2008)

Massachusetts Children's Book Award (2008)

Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award for Grades 6-8 (2008)

Rhode Island Teen Book AwardNominee (2007)

Sunshine State Young Readers Award for Grades 6-8 (2007)

Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader's Choice Award for Intermediate (2008)

Iowa Teen Award (2009)

Lincoln Award Nominee (2009)

Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award for YA (2008)

Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award (2009)

Maud Hart Lovelace Award for Grades 6–8 (2009)

Who are the main characters (for fiction) or key figures (for non-fiction)?

1. Perseus "Percy" Jackson

Role: The protagonist of the story, a 12-year-old demigod and son of Poseidon.
Personality: Brave, loyal, and sarcastic with a strong sense of justice. Though he struggles with ADHD and dyslexia, these traits are later revealed to be signs of his demigod heritage.

2. Annabeth Chase

Role: Daughter of Athena and one of Percy’s close friends and allies.
Personality: Smart, resourceful, and confident with a strong desire to prove herself. She has been at Camp Half-Blood since she was seven years old.

3. Grover Underwood

Role: Percy’s best friend, protector, and a satyr (half-human, half-goat).
Personality: Loyal, kind-hearted, and often anxious. He shows bravery when it counts.

4. Luke Castellan

Role: A son of Hermes and one of the older campers at Camp Half-Blood.
Personality: Charismatic, skilled in sword-fighting, and initially seems like a friendly mentor to Percy.

5. Chiron

Role: The activities director at Camp Half-Blood and a centaur (half-human, half-horse).
Personality: Wise, patient, and kind. He's a mentor to Percy and the other campers.

6. Sally Jackson

Role: Percy’s mother.
Personality: Caring and protective, she goes to great lengths to keep Percy safe.

Discussion Questions

7. The god Ares says he loves America. He calls it “the best place since Sparta.” What does he mean? Do you agree with his assessment of America? Why? Why not?

This context exists on page 277. The whole quote is as follows:

"“You can’t do that,” I told Ares. “You can’t just threaten people with a knife.”

Ares laughed. “Are you kidding? I love this country. Best place since Sparta. Don’t you carry a weapon, punk? You should. Dangerous world out there. Which brings me to my proposition. I need you to do me a favor.”

According to the World History Encyclopedia, "Sparta was one of the most important city-states in ancient Greece and was famous for its military prowess. The professional and well-trained Spartan hoplites with their distinctive red cloaks and long hair were probably the best and most feared fighters in Greece."

So of course Ares would love America.

It's a country with a huge military prowess, a country that's big on patriotism, and a country that is at some unrest.

Of course, this is me reading the 2006 copy in 2024, but, clearly, things have stayed pretty much the same.

I think a lot of eyes are on America and Ares, the greek god of war, enjoys this environment. I think a lot of Americans enjoy this environment. Why else would we have our eyes glued to the news while they give us doom and gloom?

The news is even touched upon in the novel. When Percy goes "missing," Smelly Gabe takes advantage of this moment to get exposure. Now, there's no way that Rick Riordan could have known in 2006 how much exposure would pay in this day in age, but, based on the passage below, there was always a spark of it waiting to arise. From pages 274:

"I froze in front of an appliance-store window because a television was playing an interview with somebody who looked very familiar—my stepdad, Smelly Gabe. He was talking to Barbara Walters—I mean, as if he were some kind of huge celebrity. She was interviewing him in our apartment, in the middle of a poker game, and there was a young blond lady sitting next to him, patting his hand.

A fake tear glistened on his cheek. He was saying, “Honest, Ms. Walters, if it wasn’t for Sugar here, my grief counselor, I’d be a wreck. My stepson took everything I cared about. My wife ... my Camaro ... I—I’m sorry. I have trouble talking about it.”

“There you have it, America.” Barbara Walters turned to the camera. “A man torn apart. An adolescent boy with serious issues. Let me show you, again, the last known photo of this troubled young fugitive, taken a week ago in Denver.”

I mean, if anybody didn't have an opinion on Percy, Barbara Walters, in this fashion, told America how to feel about him. Furthermore, they put questions in the public's head. Continuing on page 274:

“Who are the other children in this photo?” Barbara Walters asked dramatically. “Who is the man with them? Is Percy Jackson a delinquent, a terrorist, or perhaps the brainwashed victim of a frightening new cult? When we come back, we chat with a leading child psychologist. Stay tuned, America.”

So they make a story up, feed it to the public, and create hysteria.

Kind of like the things needed for war. Okay, okay, okay.

No wonder Ares loves America.

On page 275, while in this same thought process, Percy thinks:

"I’m a New Yorker. I don’t scare easy. But L.A. had a totally different feel from New York. Back home, everything seemed close. It didn’t matter how big the city was, you could get anywhere without getting lost. The street pattern and the subway made sense. There was a system to how things worked. A kid could be safe as long as he wasn’t stupid.

L.A. wasn’t like that. It was spread out, chaotic, hard to move around. It reminded me of Ares. It wasn’t enough for L.A. to be big; it had to prove it was big by being loud and strange and difficult to navigate, too."

So the mindset of the people, the chaotic layout of the land, and the noise that it all had to make.

No wonder Ares loves America.

8. At the Lotus Casino, Percy realizes that unless he gets out quickly, he will “…stay here, happy forever, playing games forever, and soon I’d forget my mom, and my quest, and maybe my own name. I’d be playing Virtual Rifleman with groovy Disco Darrin forever.” What critique is the author offering of modern life? Do you agree with it?

I think modern life has become very very, very difficult to navigate. A lot of escapism is necessary to handle it. I know after a long day, I need a cozy game to play or a comfort show to watch (maybe with a j). Other folk handle this stress in other ways with substances, shopping, poor eating habits, scrolling in social media, etc etc.

Percy is going through it, so I don't blame him for considering the choice of staying at the Lotus Casino "happy forever." A lot of folk did. Even the kid that had been there since 1977. That is an extreme sort of escapism, but it begs a deeper question:

Are we better off in this day in age?

Dionysus, when talking with Percy on page 68, brings up a good point:

“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.”

“Science!” Mr. D scoffed. “And tell me, Perseus Jackson”—I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody—”what will people think of your ‘science’ two thousand years from now?” Mr. D continued. “Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That’s what. Oh, I love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they’ve come so-o-o far."

Have we come so-o-o far?

Riordan sprinkled in a lot regarding the differences of Ancient Greece and Modern America. For instance, humans are a lot more distrated. On page 198:

"The rest of the day I spent alternately pacing the length of the train (because I had a really hard time sitting still) or looking out the windows.

Once, I spotted a family of centaurs galloping across a wheat field, bows at the ready, as they hunted lunch. The little boy centaur, who was the size of a second- grader on a pony, caught my eye and waved. I looked around the passenger car, but nobody else had noticed. The adult riders all had their faces buried in laptop computers or magazines."

I don't have to explain our screen addiction. You know.

And where is all this pleasure and escapism getting us? Struggling? Inept?

Polluted?

Grover was my favorite character, especially because he had the most to say about the environment. On pg 189:

He nodded, but still didn’t close his eyes. “It makes me sad, Percy.”

“What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?”

“No. This makes me sad.” He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. “And the sky. You can’t even see the stars. They’ve polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess you’d be an environmentalist.”

He glared at me. “Only a human wouldn’t be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast ... ah, never mind. It’s useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I’ll never find Pan.”

In this rendition of Pan, Grover explains that "'The God of Wild Places' disappeared two thousand years ago...When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep."

In this modern world, we exploit the earth's resources. We are pillaging Pan's Kingdom. And that's super unhealthy because we humans are of the earth. So we are exploiting ourselves.

We can choose to ignore this but, nearly 20 years after the 2006 copy, this rings truer than ever. Climate change is wreaking havoc, there's a huge mass of garbage floating in the ocean, and we are...doom scrolling?

I think Riordan does a good job of opening this topic up for discussion at an age appropriate level. On page 212, Percy observes:

"But my impact with the water hadn’t hurt. I was falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through my fingers. I settled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of my stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage—beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags—swirled up all around me."

Or with this quote on page 311:

"Debris fell from the cavern ceiling. Doors burst open all along the walls, and skeletal warriors marched in, hundreds of them, from every time period and nation in Western civilization. They lined the perimeter of the room, blocking the exits. Hades bellowed, “Do you think I want war, godling?”

I wanted to say, Well, these guys don’t look like peace activists. But I thought that might be a dangerous answer.

“You are the Lord of the Dead,” I said carefully. “A war would expand your kingdom, right?”

“A typical thing for my brothers to say! Do you think I need more subjects? Did you not see the sprawl of the Asphodel Fields?”

“Well...”

“Have you any idea how much my kingdom has swollen in this past century alone, how many subdivisions I’ve had to open?”

In this last century, following the First and Second Industrial Revolutions, we have begun killing ourselves in worse ways than before.

The whole thing is cinched up pretty well for me with the following passage on page 289:

"When I blinked again, the elevator wasn’t an elevator anymore. We were standing in a wooden barge. Charon was poling us across a dark, oily river, swirling with bones, dead fish, and other, stranger things—plastic dolls, crushed carnations, soggy diplomas with gilt edges.

“The River Styx,” Annabeth murmured. “It’s so ...”

“Polluted,” Charon said. “For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything as you come across—hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me.'”

I think modern day has become irresponsible. I think haste makes waste. I think humans need to get with it and focus more on what should matter: a healthy planet, a healthy community, and a healthy mindset away from unhealthy distractions.

Here are some other quotes to consider for this question:

pg 65-66

“You do know how to play pinochle?” Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.

“I’m afraid not,” I said.

“I’m afraid not, sir,” he said.

“Sir,” I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.

“Well,” he told me, “it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules.”

“I’m sure the boy can learn,” Chiron said.

pg 72-73

“Mount Olympus,” I said. “You’re telling me there really is a palace there?”

“Well now, there’s Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there’s the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It’s still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do.”

“You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in America?”

“Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West.”

“The what?”

“Come now, Percy. What you call ‘Western civilization.’ Do you think it’s just an abstract concept? No, it’s a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn’t possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know, since you passed my course—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps—Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods.”

“And then they died.”

“Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they’ve ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. 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.”

pg 247

On the other hand, I had no idea what to expect next. The gods kept toying with me. At least Hephaestus had the decency to be honest about it—he’d put up cameras and advertised me as entertainment. But even when the cameras weren’t rolling, I had a feeling my quest was being watched. I was a source of amusement for the gods.

pg 259-260

We took the elevator upstairs and checked out our room. It was a suite with three separate bedrooms and a bar stocked with candy, sodas, and chips. A hotline to room service. Fluffy towels and water beds with feather pillows. A big-screen television with satellite and high-speed Internet. The balcony had its own hot tub, and sure enough, there was a skeet-shooting machine and a shotgun, so you could launch clay pigeons right out over the Las Vegas skyline and plug them with your gun. I didn’t see how that could be legal, but I thought it was pretty cool. The view over the Strip and the desert was amazing, though I doubted we’d ever find time to look at the view with a room like this.

“Oh, goodness,” Annabeth said. “This place is ...”

“Sweet,” Grover said. “Absolutely sweet.”

pg 263

We went searching, and found him still playing Virtual Deer Hunter.

“Grover!” we both shouted.

He said, “Die, human! Die, silly polluting nasty person!”

“Grover!”

He turned the plastic gun on me and started clicking, as if I were just another image from the screen.

pg 270

“Percy?” Annabeth said. “What are you doing?”

I kept walking, up to my waist, then my chest.

She called after me, “You know how polluted that water is? There’re all kinds of toxic—”

That’s when my head went under.

pg 285-286

“We want to go the Underworld,” she said.

Charon’s mouth twitched. “Well, that’s refreshing.”

“It is?” she asked.

“Straightforward and honest. No screaming. No ‘There must be a mistake, Mr. Charon.’“ He looked us over. “How did you die, then?”

I nudged Grover.

“Oh,” he said. “Um ... drowned ... in the bathtub.”

“All three of you?” Charon asked. We nodded.

“Big bathtub.” Charon looked mildly impressed. “ I don’t suppose you have coins for passage.

Normally, with adults, you see, I could charge your American Express, or add the ferry price to your last cable bill. But with children ... alas, you never die prepared. Suppose you’ll have to take a seat for a few centuries.” “Oh, but we have coins.” I set three golden drachmas on the counter, part of the stash I’d found in Crusty’s office desk.

pg 307

Whatever was in that pit was nobody’s pet. It was unspeakably old and powerful. Even Echidna hadn’t given me that feeling. I was almost relieved to turn my back on that tunnel and head toward the palace of Hades.

Almost.

The Furies circled the parapets, high in the gloom. The outer walls of the fortress glittered black, and the two-story-tall bronze gates stood wide open.

Up close, I saw that the engravings on the gates were scenes of death. Some were from modern times—an atomic bomb exploding over a city, a trench filled with gas mask-wearing soldiers, a line of African famine victims waiting with empty bowls—but all of them looked as if they’d been etched into the bronze thousands of years ago. I wondered if I was looking at prophecies that had come true.

pg 308

Every side doorway was guarded by a skeleton in military gear. Some wore Greek armor, some British redcoat uniforms, some camouflage with tattered American flags on the shoulders. They carried spears or muskets or M-16s. None of them bothered us, but their hollow eye sockets followed us as we walked down the hall, toward the big set of doors at the opposite end. Two U.S. Marine skeletons guarded the doors. They grinned down at us, rocket-propelled grenade launchers held across their chests.

“You know,” Grover mumbled, “I bet Hades doesn’t have trouble with door-to-door salesmen.”

pg 364

“I’ve lived at Half-Blood Hill year-round since I was fourteen,” he told me. “Ever since Thalia ... well, you know. I trained, and trained, and trained. I never got to be a normal teenager, out there in the real world. Then they threw me one quest, and when I came back, it was like, ‘Okay, ride’s over. Have a nice life.’“

He crumpled his Coke can and threw into the creek, which really shocked me. One of the first things you learn at Camp Half-Blood is: Don’t litter. You’ll hear from the nymphs and the naiads.They’ll get even. You’ll crawl into bed one night and find your sheets filled with centipedes and mud.

“The heck with laurel wreaths,” Luke said. “I’m not going to end up like those dusty trophies in the Big House attic."

9. When describing the effects of Mist, Chiron says, “Remarkable, really, the lengths humans will go to fit things into their version of reality.” How is this true in the novel? In Greek mythology?

My thoughts on Question 8 segue pretty well into this question.

The human mind is complex. The human mind struggles to wrap its head around modern day. The human mind struggles to wrap its head around life itself! I don't blame humans for confusion, doubt, and questions about what it all means.

What I do blame humans for is their, what seems like, lack of concern for the truth. They find a concept or idea that they're comfy with and they stick with it. Sometimes, they even double down on it. I'm guilty of doing that, though it's always my goal to learn and change my mindset based on new facts that come through.

But not all humans do this.

The above prompt stems from page 154-155:

“Okay, that’s extremely cool,” I admitted. “But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?”

Chiron smiled. “Mist is a powerful thing, Percy.”

“Mist?”

“Yes. Read The Iliad. It’s full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mortal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans. You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."

It really is remarkable.

Furthermore, the book comments on how a general population of humans choose to live their life. It's well put in the passage on pg 292-293

“There’s a court for dead people?”

“Yeah. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare—people like that. Sometimes they look at a life and decide that person needs a special reward—the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So they go to the Asphodel Fields.”

“And do what?”

Grover said, “Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever.”

“Harsh,” I said.

“Not as harsh as that,” Grover muttered. “Look.”

A couple of black-robbed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.

“He’s that preacher who made the news, remember?” Grover asked.

“Oh, yeah.” I did remember now. We’d seen him on TV a couple of times at the Yancy Academy dorm. He was this annoying televangelist from upstate New York who’d raised millions of dollars for orphanages and then got caught spending the money on stuff for his mansion, like gold-plated toilet seats, and an indoor putt- putt golf course. He’d died in a police chase when his “Lamborghini for the Lord” went off a cliff.

I said, “What’re they doing to him?”

“Special punishment from Hades,” Grover guessed. “The really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. The Fur—the Kindly Ones will set up an eternal torture for him.”

The thought of the Furies made me shudder. I realized I was in their home territory now. Old Mrs. Dodds would be licking her lips with anticipation.

“But if he’s a preacher,” I said, “and he believes in a different hell... .”

Grover shrugged. “Who says he’s seeing this place the way we’re seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You’re very stubborn—er, persistent, that way.”

Humans see what they want to see. Humans do what they want to do. There's a saying about "to control a cat is to control chaos."

I think humans could use this thought about their minds. To control their mind is to control chaos. We, after all, can only completely control ourselves and our outlook. But, as Percy observes on page 302:

"But I thought of how few people there were in Elysium, how tiny it was compared to the Fields of Asphodel or even the Fields of Punishment. So few people did good in their lives. It was depressing."

I'd like to think that humans won't let the mist befall their eyes. I'd like to think that humans will wake up to what they've allowed for too long.

I'd also bet money that humans will continue being humans and that means seeing what they want to see—or what their algorithm is telling them to see.

Get off your phones, folks.

Here are some other quotes to consider for this question:

pg 45-46

“So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!”

“Of course.”

“Then why—”

“The less you knew, the fewer monsters you’d attract,” Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. “We put Mist over the humans’ eyes. We hoped you’d think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are.”

“Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?”

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

“Percy,” my mom said, “there’s too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety.”

pg 154-155

“You can’t,” Chiron said.

“Can’t what?”

“Lose the pen,” he said. “It is enchanted. It will always reappear in your pocket. Try it.”

I was wary, but I threw the pen as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear in the grass.

“It may take a few moments,” Chiron told me. “Now check your pocket.” Sure enough, the pen was there.

“Okay, that’s extremely cool,” I admitted. “But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?”

Chiron smiled. “Mist is a powerful thing, Percy.”

“Mist?”

pg 162

“A back exit?” she suggested.

There wasn’t one. Even if there had been, it wouldn’t have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.

“They won’t attack us with witnesses around,” I said. “Will they?”

“Mortals don’t have good eyes,” Annabeth reminded me. “Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist.”

“They’ll see three old ladies killing us, won’t they?”

She thought about it. “Hard to say. But we can’t count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof ... ?”

pg 302

In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium. Immediately I knew that’s where I wanted to go when I died.

“That’s what it’s all about,” Annabeth said, like she was reading my thoughts. “That’s the place for heroes.”

But I thought of how few people there were in Elysium, how tiny it was compared to the Fields of Asphodel or even the Fields of Punishment. So few people did good in their lives. It was depressing.

pg 325-326

He swung the baseball bat off his shoulder. “How would you like to get smashed: classic or modern?”

I showed him my sword.

“That’s cool, dead boy,” he said. “Classic it is.” The baseball bat changed into a huge, two-handed sword. The hilt was a large silver skull with a ruby in its mouth.

pg 334-335

It’s funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality. Chiron had told me that long ago. As usual, I didn’t appreciate his wisdom until much later.

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake.

This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted me and two other adolescents in New York and brought us across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror.

Poor little Percy Jackson wasn’t an international criminal after all. He’d caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from his captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus—”Why didn’t I remember him before?”). The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could’ve done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo, and notified the police. Finally, brave Percy Jackson (I was beginning to like this kid) had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy Jackson and his two friends were safely in police custody.

The reporters fed us this whole story. We just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn’t hard), and played victimized kids for the cameras.

“All I want,” I said, choking back my tears, “is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew ... somehow ... we would be okay. And I know he’ll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here’s the phone number.” The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for three tickets on the next plane to New York.

12. Throughout the story, Percy is troubled by frightening dreams. In what ways do those dreams increase the tension in the story? Is their menace completely resolved by the end of the story?

As somebody who has "movie quality" dreams. Percy's dreams were pretty well placed.

The first dream is on page 41. This introduction of dreams start off innocent enough, like Percy's being bothered about the current situation and his brain needed to process it. This is like any other dream. When reading about the white horse and the golden eagle lighting, I knew the author had to have a purpose in bringing it up.

At this stage, even with mention of "a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder," I didn't think too much of it.

Then, on pages pg 129-131, Percy dreams again:

"I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.

About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose."

So at this point, I connect the dots that the white horse from the first dream is likely Poseidon in the blue, who is also God of Horses, and the golden eagle was Zeus, now in the green. They're fighting and Percy "feels" that he needs to stop it. This is a calling coming to him via dreams.

As a reader, this is tight. As a writer, I'm taking notes.

As Percy, I would feel real uneasy at the following,

"Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice .

Come down, little hero, the voice crooned. Come down!"

So I'm brought to assume this is Hades, right? God of the Underworld, brother to Zeus and Poseidon.

But then, with this dream on pages 193-194:

"In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit. Gray mist creatures churned all around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead.

They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.

Looking down made me dizzy.

The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, I knew it must be bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that something was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.

The little hero, an amused voice echoed far down in the darkness. Too weak, too young, but perhaps you will do.

The voice felt ancient — cold and heavy. It wrapped around me like sheets of lead.

They have misled you, boy, it said. Barter with me. I will give you what you want.

A shimmering image hovered over the void: my mother, frozen at the moment she'd dissolved in a shower of gold. Her face was distorted with pain, as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at me, pleading: Go!

I tried to cry out, but my voice wouldn't work. Cold laughter echoed from the chasm.

An invisible force pulled me forward. It would drag me into the pit unless I stood firm.

Help me rise, boy. The voice became hungrier. Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!"

So I'm no longer thinking that this is Hades. This dream was pivotal in adding the right tension. Something ancient, more ancient than Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon.

The heebiest of jeebies got to me here.

And then, on pages 252-254,

"Percy Jackson, it said. Yes, the exchange went well, I see.

I was back in the dark cavern, spirits of the dead drifting around me. Unseen in the pit, the monstrous thing was speaking, but this time it wasn't addressing me. The numbing power of its voice seemed directed somewhere else.

And he suspects nothing? it asked.

Another voice, one I almost recognized, answered at my shoulder. Nothing, my lord. He is as ignorant as the rest.

I looked over, but no one was there. The speaker was invisible.

Deception upon deception, the thing in the pit mused aloud. Excellent.

Truly, my lord, said the voice next to me, you are well-named the Crooked One. But was it really necessary? I could have brought you what I stole directly —

You? the monster said in scorn. You have already shown your limits. You would have failed me completely had I not intervened.

But, my lord —

Peace, little servant. Our six months have bought us much. Zeus's anger has grown. Poseidon has played his most desperate card. Now we shall use it against him. Shortly you shall have the reward you wish, and your revenge. As soon as both items are delivered into my hands ... but wait. He is here.

What? The invisible servant suddenly sounded tense. You summoned him, my lord?

No. The full force of the monsters attention was now pouring over me, freezing me in place. Blast his father's blood — he is too changeable, too unpredictable. The boy brought himself hither.

Impossible! the servant cried.

For a weakling such as you, perhaps, the voice snarled. Then its cold power turned back on me. So ... you wish to dream of your quest, young half-blood? Then I will oblige."

WHO IS THIS TRAITOR? This is the person the oracle was talking about. HAD TO BE.

The author did very well with sprinkling in the right amount of information.

Even while Percy was awake, the dreams added tension. From Annabeth especially. On page 267:

"Annabeth was looking at me as if she knew my next question, and was silently willing me not to ask it.

"You have an idea what might be in that pit, don't you?" I asked her. "I mean, if it isn't Hades?"

"Percy...let's not talk about it. Because if it isn't Hades...No. It has to be Hades."

And then they finally get to the pit on page 303, I felt like I had already been there because of the dreams. A great storytelling tool. This is where things came to a head in discovering what was going on down below.

The menace is not solved by the end of this book, but boy, does it get a reader excited for the second book and the following. Well met!

ACTIVITIES

A3. World War II is revealed in the book to actually have been triggered by an epic battle between the gods. How can a modern event be explained by the gods? Pick a current event—an earthquake, a battle, or even a surprising celebrity love affair—and explain how the gods were really behind it. You can present your explanations as a television newscast!

Voice Over: Breaking News from OlympusTV

Helene Parthenos: Good evening, Olympus! I'm Helene Parthenos. We have a special report for you this evening regarding new papers that have been released from their confidential bindings.

You all remember Studio 54 of New York divinely, any god worth their weight in drachmas visited. The mortals partied under disco balls and strobe lights, but this story is about the chaotic Olympians pulling strings behind the scenes.

Buckle up, because this story is more sparkling and dramatic than a gold-threaded toga! We have Calliope Castor and Delphi Aegis with more information.

Calliope Castor: Thanks, Helene. It all began with Dionysus, the god of wine, theater, and debauchery. Inspired by the energy of 1970s New York, Dionysus blessed Studio 54 with his unique magic, turning it into the epicenter of mortal hedonism. Every cocktail, every dazzling dance move, every outrageous outfit carried his signature flair.

But Dionysus didn’t just stay behind the scenes—he frequently attended in disguise, mingling with mortals, sharing his wine, and whispering outrageous ideas for theme parties.

Delphi Aegis: And where Dionysus goes, the other gods are sure to follow. Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, couldn’t resist the allure of Studio 54. She claimed it as her earthly playground, inspiring romance and drama under the disco lights. Mortals reported a mysterious ‘aura’ around certain guests, who seemed impossibly magnetic. You guessed it—that was Aphrodite, ensuring Studio 54 became not just a club, but the place to find love… or at least a thrilling one-night story.”

Calliope Castor: Apollo, ever the showman, made sure the music hit just right. He occasionally took the DJ’s booth, creating beats so perfect they compelled even the shyest wallflower to dance. He also nudged aspiring artists and performers to try their luck at the club. Essentially blessing Studio 54 as a hub for creativity. Rumor has it, a few chart-topping hits were whispered directly to musicians by Apollo himself.

Delphi Aegis: But it wasn’t all fun and games, Helene. Hera, queen of the gods and protector of marriage, became outraged by the club’s reputation for scandalous behavior. She viewed the excess and infidelity as an affront to her values. Hera’s jealousy and disdain reached their peak when she discovered Zeus himself had attended in disguise, chatting up mortal women and throwing thunderbolt-shaped confetti at a New Year’s party. Furious, Hera orchestrated the club’s downfall by subtly influencing mortal authorities to investigate its shady financial dealings.

Calliope Castor: And let’s not forget Hades, the god of the underworld. While he was initially amused by the decadence, things soured when he was denied entry at the door—on multiple occasions! Witnesses say bouncers dismissed him as ‘too gloomy.’ Insulted, Hades cursed the club with misfortune, ensuring that its owners would face legal troubles and that the once-golden nightclub would spiral into chaos.

Delphi Aegis: The fall of Studio 54 is a classic tale of hubris. What started as a divine masterpiece became a battlefield for godly egos. By 1980, with Dionysus distracted by a new project in Ibiza and Hera meddling in full force, the dream had faded.

Calliope Castor: The moral of the story? If your nightclub becomes the talk of Mount Olympus, enjoy the ride, but watch your tax forms. The gods giveth, and the gods taketh away.

Helene Parthenos: Thank you to Calliope and Delphi. You can hear more about the released papers and the investigation on OlympusTV's nighttime special "Deities After Dark: Studio 54 Exposed" premiering this Thursday night at 8pm.

That’s all for tonight’s Olympus Insider. Tune in tomorrow for an exclusive look at how Hermes allegedly invented the modern courier service. Until then, remember: the gods are always watching!

Final Thoughts

Yes, this is a book out of my age range. That being said, I think any age reader could get something out of this book. As I wrote earlier, Rick Riordan poses topics in a way that opens up a discussion at an age appropriate level.

At the very least, you get a fun, quick reimagining of ancient myths—or so us mortals must believe.

Don't let the mist cloud your vision, Katherine Arkady

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan