My friend MK is a high-school librarian, so both of us read a pretty remarkable amount of kid lit. In this maybe-semi-regular-feature, we discuss it!
Jilly: First thoughts on this one?
MK: Well, one of my first thoughts for this
one is that we have the opposite problem with our narrator, who reads as older
than 12 to me for most of the book.
Jilly: Totally agreed. I'd put Percy at about 14
MK: Yup. Especially since they make such a
big deal of his dyslexia/problems in school early on (which I realize are later
explained by his brain being wired for ancient Greek or whatever)—his
vocabulary is awfully expansive.
Jilly: I mean, with boys developing more
slowly, generally speaking, he could have been 15, with his vocab, his punning,
his proto-sex-drive. I feel like he and Annabeth were being set up as eventual
love interests (in the series) and their awareness of all that felt older than
12
MK: Actually that was the part the felt the
most authentic to me-he teases her for having a crush on Luke, but I don't
think there's sexual tension between the two of them at all.
Jilly: I don't think they have sexual tension
yet; I think they're being set up to develop it later.
MK: I wouldn't be surprised if that's the
case. I just think he's completely unaware of it, in the way that tweens can
still be friends-ish with the opposite sex.
Jilly: That's fair. You don’t think her crush
on Luke felt more 14-ish? I felt like Annabeth's vibe was generally older, which
increased my sense that Percy felt older, too. Like the anger with her dad
could have been 15 for me.
MK: Well, you said it yourself- she seems
older because she's a girl. I think their relative maturity levels make sense.
Jilly: I think they do, but she felt older to
me AS a girl. Anyway, we can agree that the kids these days, they grow up so
fast.
MK: Hahahaha. Yes.
Jilly: What did you think of the
characterization of the myths and the gods etc.?
MK: I liked it, but I also got this sense of
"This will go PERFECTLY with our unit on mythology!"
Jilly: Percy's recall of all the myths sometimes felt
a bit forced
MK: YES. Especially from someone who is flunking
tests on the subject!
Jilly: I can't imagine ANY 6th grade class
going into that much depth with mythology, either. That level of memorization
is high school or older to my mind
MK: I also found the "misunderstood
troublemaker finally finds his place" narrative not overly believable,
because the place turned out to be "among super intelligent nerds."
Jilly: Yeah. The ways that he made trouble
honestly felt more like the accident-prone kid than anything
I think part of that
was Riordan playing to his audience of, presumably, 10-year-olds
MK: Yes.
Jilly: Like "HAHAHA HE DID WHAT???" But
if that kid were in a classroom, I think most teachers' response would be
exasperation, but they'd try to work with him. They'd also understand that a
kid with dyslexia would need a different class load -- I mean, he was clearly
attending private Manhattan schools. I find it hard to believe that his
dyslexia would be allowed to totally dive-bomb his education at places like
that.
MK: Well right. They don't get any money if
they kick him out.
Jilly: All of this is definitely adult
quibbling though; I doubt many 10-year-olds would be bothered by any of it, and
it doesn't significantly impact the book, it's just some of what I see as a
string of "convenient short-cuts" the author makes. Like a trope of
YA is that authors want to get their kids not to have to deal with modern
technology, because it's too awkward for them to manage.
MK: Well, it also dates your books more
quickly.
Jilly: True. Anyway, Riordan had a good enough
reason for that work around, but I feel like a lot of his explanations for
those things--the "I just need to get the kid to place X or to not have
thing Y around"--were a bit "convenient." Sorta like "meuh,
good enough, let's get back to the underworld."
MK: That's fair. I felt like he was doing
The Odyssey for 12 year olds, but only some of the time.
Jilly: Do we think the book will get kids into
mythology in general? I feel like it could - it does make the myths feel human
MK: I feel like it gets kids More into
mythology if they already have an introduction. I just think it's introduced as
sort of intermediate level knowledge.
Jilly: What do you mean?
MK: Like, Percy is "remembering" a
bunch of stuff from class, but some of it seems like "Oh, we all know who
Zeus is."
Jilly: Oh, that's fair. Yeah, and for gods like
Hephaestus, that sort of "duh, we all know THIS guy" thing is asking
a lot.
MK: Exactly. And I think references can get
readers interested in learning more, but if there's a base level of
understanding you need to even Get the reference, that's either frustrating or
you ignore it completely.
Jilly: Right--you skim right past it and never
find that myth, or even think to want to. Like the Aphrodite cabin is only
referenced as being monstrously vain.
MK: Yeah, we definitely get the PG version
of Aphrodite and Bacchus.
Jilly: No joke. The Diet Coke? C'mon now. All
of that said, I feel like it sounds like we didn't like this book, but I
thought it was pretty charming.
MK: Hahaha. Yes, it's very readable.
Jilly: I especially loved that Percy wasn't
Zeus's kid, which is what I expected.
MK: Okay but how annoying was it that it
took pretty much the whole book for him to figure out he has power over water?
JUST GET IN THE DAMN WATER.
Jilly: RIGHT? It was like, "I made a
fountain move, then I somehow made pipes spit water on my enemies, then I felt
immediately healed in water, and yet no one, truly no one, can determine who my
god-dad-or-mom is."
MK: "Weird, I get this strange feeling
every time I'm near water... must be a coincidence."
Jilly: I guess I chalked that up to the author
wanting to give his readers a mini-mystery they could definitely solve. Like
the sense that they got it, YESSSSS! CALLED THAT ONE BRO!
MK: Now I'm imagining a bunch of 10-year-olds reading it at the same time and being super smug. "Oh, you haven't
figured out who his dad is yet?"
Jilly: I mean...I would've been that 10-year-old. ATHENA CABIN TILL I DIE!
MK: Hahahaha. By the way, knowing that there
are a bunch of half-bloods running around, they sure give those assholes a lot
of leeway for capture the flag.
Jilly: no joke. That summer camp is a liability
NIGHTMARE.
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