Monsters in the Maze
Paro Anand
PERCY JACKSON AND THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH by Rick Riordan Puffin Books, 2008, 342 pp., 350
November 2008, volume 32, No 11

Half boy, Half God. What an interesting concept. When I first heard of the series, I was dying to read it and was happy when I was asked to do the review for this issue. However, it is juvenile, obvious, over-simplified and completely a-literary. But hey, it seems to work. So who am I to pooh-pooh it?

I was actually very excited about getting this particular book. I teach at Vasant Valley School and was working on a project with classes 6 through 8, getting them to select their personal favourite reads. We’re going to have our own version of the Man Booker. An astounding number of students selected the Percy Jackson series or (mostly girls), the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers.

In terms of writing style, literary quality, plot and character development, Twilight scores over Percy Jackson. But, when the kids first told me of both of these, I’d found the idea of a half god, half boy teen hero charming and approached the first of the series—The Lightning Thief— in a very positive frame of mind. After all, it had a lot of kids reading, including some boys who proudly professed that they had never read a book unless they were forced to. Even they had been hooked by the author, so I was looking forward to delving into the novel.

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