by Rick Riordan, 2005
Read this book because Anza and Isabel were talking about it in the context of a movie or TV show coming out that would have the effect that the movies Lord of The Rings had on Wayne and I – we loved those books but now our images of the characters have been replaced by the actors in the movies.
It’s a children’s book series. Anza and Isabel have read all of them. There are 7 books, the last of which was published in 2024 and is called Wrath of the Triple Goddess. At first I could barely stand it. So formulaic – a copy of every children’s book series ever written: child has powers unknown to him and must fight an evil force. This book, the child is Percy Jackson, short for Perseus, 11 year-old son of the god, Poseidon, and a human mother, Sally. He is a “half-blood” and dyslexic and ADHD and continually kicked out of boarding schools. His mom lives with a disgusting human, Gabe, who plays poker all day and is a mean slob. Percy has no idea he is half human, half god. He and his mom are going on a vacation to the sea after school is out one summer. They are attacked by monsters. Percy’s mom gets scattered into gold dust, Percy is rescued by the creatures and half-bloods of the summer camp for half-bloods. Percy finds out he’s a half-blood and his father may be the god, Poseidon. He must go on a quest to find and return Zeus’s master bolt. He and his friends, Annabeth (half-blood daughter of Athena and human father), and Grover – a Satyr, venture across the country (east coast to west coast) and then down deep into Hades to recover the master bolt and return it to Zeus and save the world from another world war.
The ending was really good and I’m glad I stuck with it.
There were a couple of passages I particularly liked:
page 302, the three are in Hades:
“Eliysium.
“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.”
(Not that we can earn our salvation, but I like the fact that he points out that people can choose to do good in their lives, and there aren’t many who do, unfortunately.)
Page 372, Percy has saved the world and must decide whether he stays at Camp Half-Blood year-round, or goes to live with his Mom for the school year, trying a new school and possibly getting killed by all the monsters that are out to get him.
“We will not sit back,” Chiron promised. “But you must be careful. Kronos wants you to come unraveled. He wants your life disrupted, your thoughts clouded with fear and anger. Do not give him what he wants. Train patiently. Your time will come.”
An apt description of what Satan wants to do to us – have our lives disrupted, our thoughts clouded with fear and anger. Don’t give him what he wants. We all have a choice – to choose good (God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit – LOVE) or evil – disruption, fear, anger.
Jeanne, choose good, choose LOVE, this year, 2026!
No FEAR:
Romans 8:31-39New International Version
More Than Conquerors
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And 2 Timothy 1:7: God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.