Percy Jackson Book One: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

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Description:

Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school . . . again. And that’s the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them: Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.

Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus's stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed in his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.

Age Recommendation: 13-16, 7th-10th Grade

General Content:

Language: 1/10- Little to no derogatory language/ references, basic name-calling/ bullying.

Alcohol & Drugs: 3/10- A few brief mentions of alcohol, cigars, and gambling.

Violence & Gore: 5/10- Non-graphic violence scattered throughout. Percy is often pursued by monsters and other gods who want him dead. Some bullying. One mention of possible domestic violence.

Sexual Content: 1/10- Brief mention of Ares and Aphrodite dating/ kissing despite Aphrodite being married.

Parent Guide:

Tropes: Greek mythology, heroic journey, monsters in a modern setting.

Preface

This novel has heavy ties to Greek mythology and talks often of Greek gods and goddesses.

Ch. 1

-“Being a half-blood is dangerous. It’s scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways”.

-Percy talks about putting up with a girl (Nancy) throwing chunks of a sandwich at his friend Grover so that he didn’t get expelled. “Looking back on it, I wish I’d decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would’ve been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.”

-Percy snaps at Nancy when she giggles about the “naked guy” in the Greek funeral art.

-Mr. Brunner, Percy’s teacher, has Percy retell the story of Kronos, the titan who ate his god children but then was later forced to vomit them up by his son, Zeus.

-Percy’s teacher, Mrs. Dodds, turns into an evil, animal-like creature and lunges at him with her talons at the ready. “Die, honey”, she says mid-lunge. Percy’s other teacher throws him a sword, and Percy kills the creature attacking him.

Ch. 2

-Percy sees three old ladies knitting socks, one suddenly takes out large shears and cuts the yarn. When Grover, Percy’s friend, freaks out, Percy asks if someone’s going to die.

Ch. 3

-Percy introduces his mom, Sally, stating that she’s the “best person in the world,” thus proving his theory that “the best people have the rottenest luck”. Her parents passed away when she was 5, so she was raised by an uncle. In her senior year, her uncle also passed away. She wasn’t married to Percy’s dad, and their relationship was a secret, but one day he left and didn’t come back. She raised Percy on her own until she married a jerk named Gabe.

-Gabe smokes a cigar while playing poker with his buddies. Chips and beer cans are everywhere.

-Percy admits that Gabe spends all his money on beer and cigars. When Percy comes home, he expects him to provide his gambling money, calling it a “‘guy secret.’ Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out".

Ch. 4

-Grover tells Percy that “the Lord of the dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions” are after him.

-A Minotaur follows Percy’s car, eventually causing it to roll into a ditch, knocking Grover slightly unconscious and a bit bloody. Everyone manages to get out but continues to run away as the bull-like creature follows and lunges at them multiple times. Percy’s mom attempts to draw its attention when she is picked up by the neck. She suddenly disappears in golden light. Percy screams for his mom, but she is gone.

Ch. 5

-“‘Uh, thanks.’ I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr”.

-“‘Wait,’ I told Chiron. ‘You’re telling me there’s such a thing as God.’ ‘Well, now,’ Chiron said. ‘God—capital G, God. That’s a different matter altogether. We shan’t deal with the metaphysical.’ ‘Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—‘ ‘Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That’s a smaller matter.’”

Ch. 6

-Clarisse, one of the other campers at Camp Half-Blood, drags Percy into the bathroom and attempts to give him a swirly.

Ch. 7

-While the campers eat dinner, they each take turns throwing some food into the fire, an offering to the gods/ their parents.

Ch. 8

-Kids from the Ares cabin pick on Percy during capture the flag. They push him down, and one camper cuts his arm with his sword.

Ch. 9

-Percy goes to the oracle for a prophecy. He finds out that it is an old mummy of a woman. Green mist falls from her mouth as he hears a voice in his head speaking his prophecy.

-Percy learn his quest will take him to the underworld to confront Hades.

Ch. 10

-Mrs. Dodds and two other demon old ladies like her board Percy’s bus. They search for him and attack his friends, Grover and Annabeth. Percy and his friends are able to defeat them with their swords.

Ch. 11

-Percy and his friends stumble into a garden gnome emporium, only to find out the statues are real people and the shop is owned by Medusa. She tries to turn them to stone, but they fight back, ending with Percy cutting off her head.

Ch. 12

-Grover tells Percy about Pan, the god of wild places who protects satyrs and nature, about his goal to find him.

-Percy has a dream in which he’s in the underworld looking into a chasm. Spirits of the dead whisped around him, pulling him away from the chasm as a voice called out to him from below.

Ch. 13

-Annabeth mentions that she wants to be an architect so that she can build “the greatest monument to the gods, ever”.

-Percy and his friends go into the gateway arch. In the elevator with them is an older lady with her chihuahua. Later in the trip, her dog turns into a chimera, and she admits that she’s Echidna, the mother of all monsters.

-The Chimera bites Percy, sending poison into his body. Percy knows he is dying, and his only choice is to either die in the arch or jump down hundreds of feet into the Mississippi River.

Ch. 15

-Ares arrives at a dinner that Percy and his friends are getting dinner at. He rides in on a motorcycle. “The motorcycle’s headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns. The seat was leather—but leather that looked like…well, Caucasian human skin”.

-Ares mentions bringing his girlfriend to an abandoned water park for a date. Later, Percy jokes about it, and Grover and Annabeth shut him down: “'If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date,' I said, staring up at the barbed wire, 'I’d hate to see what she looks like.' 'Percy,' Annabeth warned. 'Be more respectful.' 'Why? I thought you hated Ares.' 'He’s still a god. And his girlfriend is very temperamental.' 'You don’t want to insult her looks,' Grover added. 'Who is she? Echidna?' 'No, Aphrodite,' Grover said, a little dreamily. 'Goddess of love.' 'I thought she was married to somebody,' I said. 'Hephaestus.' 'What’s your point?' he asked. 'Oh.' I suddenly felt the need to change the subject”.

-Percy brings the subject of Aphrodite back up, asking about her husband. “What about Aphrodite’s husband?” “Well, you know,” she said. “Hephaestus. The blacksmith. He was crippled when he was a baby, thrown off Mount Olympus by Zeus. So he isn’t exactly handsome. Clever with his hands, and all, but Aphrodite isn’t into brains and talent, you know?” “She likes bikers.” “Whatever.” “Hephaestus knows?” “Oh sure,” Annabeth said. “He caught them together once. I mean, literally caught them, in a golden net, and invited all the gods to come and laugh at them. Hephaestus is always trying to embarrass them.”.

-Percy mentions the interior of the ride he must get Ares' sword from, noting that there were mirrors all around. He comments: “While Ares and Aphrodite were smooching with each other, they could look at their favorite people: themselves”.

Ch. 16

-Percy, Annabeth, and Grover end up at the Lotus Hotel and Casino, not knowing it’s a trap. They head down to the game room to play some arcade games. Percy mentions that Grover’s favorite was a reverse hunting game where the “deer go out and shoot the rednecks”.

Ch. 17

-Percy is all over the news, and the news anchor is questioning who Percy truly is, stating: “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.”

-Percy, Grover, and Annabeth are in alleyways looking for their next destination. It’s starting to get dark, “and hungry-looking characters started coming out on the streets to play. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a New Yorker. I don’t scare easily. But L.A. had a totally different feel from New York”…

“We walked past gangbangers, bums, and street hawkers, who looked at us like they were trying to figure out if we were worth the trouble of mugging.

-A group of six “white kids with expensive clothes and mean faces” surrounds Percy and his friends. Instinctively, Percy takes out his sword. The leader of the group continues to close in with a switch blade, Percy and his friends run (as his sword is powerless against mortals).

-While running from the gang of kids, Percy and his friends end up at a waterbed store. The owner, however, is actually the giant, Procrustes, the stretcher. He’s tricked Grover and pushes Annabeth into waterbeds, chains come out and begin to stretch Grover and Annabeth. Percy tricks Procrustes into his own waterbed, he’s chained, and Percy deals a fatal blow with his sword.

Ch. 18

-Percy and his friends make it to the underworld, getting ushered in by boat. Percy realizes he’s a bit scared: “I [Percy] found myself muttering a prayer, though I wasn’t quite sure who I was praying to. Down here, only one god mattered, and he was the one I had come to confront”.

-A scene from the underworld:

“A couple of black-robed 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.”….“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.”

Ch. 19

-Percy describes a section of the underworld called the “fields of punishment”  in which “even from far away, I could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches, or listen to opera music. I could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top. And I saw worse tortures, too—things I don’t want to describe”.

-“The surfer screamed something about bad mushrooms and paddled away from us as fast as he could.”

Ch. 20

-Ares tricked Percy in order to start a war among the gods. Percy is so mad that he challenges Ares to a fight, and he miraculously wins the duel with a slash to the ankle.

-While Percy and Ares fight, spectators and police officers show up. Ares, in his anger, sends a wall of fire toward them, burning up police cars.

Ch. 21

-Gabe raises his hand, and Percy notices his mother flinch. “For the first time, I realized something. Gabe had hit my mother. I didn’t know when, or how much. But I was sure he’d done it. Maybe it had been going on for years, when I wasn’t around”.

-Percy returns to his old home and room to find a box on his floor, in it is Medusa’s severed head. He has a choice to make: turn Gabe into a statue or leave and hope his mom has the courage to do the same.

Ch. 22

-Luke betrays Percy and the Gods by siding with Kronos. He sets a scorpion on Percy and leaves, believing that the poison will kill him in seconds. It stings Percy, and Percy blacks out.