A Summer of Magical Reading

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Monday, July 2, 2007; Page C12

The Titan's Curse

by Rick Riordan

ages 10 and older

"The Friday before winter break, my mom packed me an overnight bag and a few deadly weapons and took me to a new boarding school."

Some books, you can just tell you're going to love after the first sentence. That's part of the magic of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. The sentence above is the opening line of "The Titan's Curse," the third book in the planned five-volume set.

The success of these books -- "The Lightning Thief" and "The Sea of Monsters" are the first two -- lies in their magical mix of mythology and merriment. One minute the reader is gasping in suspense, the next laughing out loud.

Percy Jackson is the 12-year-old narrator. This kid has been in more than his fair share of trouble. For example, while on a fifth-grade field trip to a Revolutionary War battlefield, he was examining a cannon. "I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway," he writes.

Part of the trick in having kids narrate books written by adults is that sometimes the kids sound like miniature adults, not kids. But Riordan is brilliant at making Percy sound, feel and act like a typical 12-year-old.

Of course, Percy isn't just any 12-year-old. He's a half-blood: half human and half god, in the mythological sense. Percy's father is Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. One of his best friends, Thalia, is the daughter of Zeus -- the king of all gods.

Riordan does an excellent job of staying true to the mythological stories while bringing them to life by putting Percy and his friends in the middle of them. It's that near-perfect mix of seemingly normal kids in completely abnormal situations that make this series so memorable.

-- Tracy Grant