Parent reviews for The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1

Hey guys! If your child enjoys adventure and fantasy they'll like this book. I'm NOT Into that I have to read it for summer reading and I find it sooooo boring:(

This book is amazing! It shows Percy's thoughts clearly. My favorite part was when Percy was underground in Hades' territory. It was a joy to read!

Just twelve years old, young Percy Jackson goes on a quest to find out who he truly is-while training at Camp Half-Blood. He is expelled from his most recent school, Yancy Academy, for not knowing how to control his gift with water (the meanest girl in school, Nancy Bobofit, gets sprayed in the face with toilet water, but Percy doesn't know how he did it). Very mild bullying appears in this book, but nothing else as far as what parents should watch out for.

Percy Jackson lives in New York. He had just been kicked out of his sixth boarding school when a Minotaur charged right at him! He had to move to a summer camp, which encouraged the use of real weapons as a pastime. He must retrieve the lightning bolt from Hades before the summer solace or have a god-level war on his hands. Oh, and yeah, he’s a demigod. I like Percy Jackson because this series is a good, action-packed one and I would recommend this for Intermediate readers. It also teaches a lot about Greek Mythology and different cultures. Rick Riordan is one of the best authors and I love a lot of the other books he’s written.

My son loved this book so much. It’s adventurous and engaging.

This was way before my career in Psychology and the study of juvenile behavior. When I was a child I was a little advance for my age, but anyone can reread if the don't understand something at first. I loved the action packed, thrill seeking adventures that the teen demigods take part in. I can't just ignore it, it does have a few statements that mention the gods having affairs with mortals. If you don't think your kid is mature enough to understand them, or don't want them to know about it, you could read the book with your child, or simply wait to give it to them. But in the books, there are a lot of out of concepts that might be confusing to them, but in the way the book portrays them and how the characters interact with these situations, it teaches kids to accept differences and to not dwell on them. I personally think this is a great message for kids to learn in today's world because of all the diversity.

Typical fare adventure tale and a compelling read, but be prepared for some conversations about diversity and problematic themes/characters. The series weaves a thinly veiled narrative of white supremacy (western civilization as the seat of the gods) and turns around a very heroic victim-centric plot with every other character serving as an accessory to his life story.

its a really good book there are some references to blood and stuff but it's fine for tweens and teens

The book does have violence and if you're not comfortable with your kids learning about Greek mythology then then this isn't the series for you. My son has always preferred non-fiction and I've wanted him to find a book that made him see the adventure a good story can take you on. This book did just that! He has devoured the whole series and moved on to The Heroes of Olympus. Last night my husband caught him up at midnight reading with a flashlight to finish the book. I have an app that ask questions to create a scrapbook. The other day it asked what can you not live without and my 8 year old said, "Books!" I marked this as 9 and up, but I think that a mature 8 year old could handle this just fine.