Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Review for Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a series including five books, under the genre of adventure and mythology. Young Percy Jackson, through a series of events finds out that he is not only a demigod, but a son of one of the Big Three: Poseidon. Once being introduced to the world of, what he had thought was ancient mythology, life just gets more and more hectic with monster attacks, dangerous quests, and of course the struggles of adolescence. Throughout the five books we meet new characters, different myths and the occasional bad pun. Follow Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and Grover Underwood on their adventures across the U.S.

The Author Rick Riordan has won several awards for some of the books in the series and has been nominated for many others. While keeping the original myths as accurate as possible Rick Influences the plot of the story around many ancient tales, gods and the notion the, History repeats its self. Before becoming an official writer Rick worked as an English teacher, undoubtedly where he acquired his knowledge on writing and dialogue. While the Percy Jackson series may be his most famous, or popular, series, Rick he’s also written a few other book series. These books include: the heroes of Olympus, The Kane chronicles, 39 Clues, Tres Navarre series, and a few other independent books.

Rick Riordans style of writing, I think it’s safe to say, can be compared to that of Mark Twain. Why you may ask? Of all the books he wrote, he won the Mark Twain award twice, for the first two books in this series. He's a few other the awards he's earned.

1998 Shamus Award and Anthony Award for Big Red Tequila
1999 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original for The Widower's Two-Step
2008 Mark Twain Award for The Lightning Thief
2009 Mark Twain Award for The Sea of Monsters
2009 Rebecca Caudill Award for The Lightning Thief
2010 School Library Journal's Best Book for The Red Pyramid
2011 Children's Choice Book Awards: Author of the Year
2011 Children's Choice Book Awards: Fifth Grade to Sixth Grade Book of the Year for The Red Pyramid
2011 Wyoming Soaring Eagle Book Award for The Last Olympian
2011 Milner Award for Percy Jackson and the Olympians series
2012 Indian Paintbrush Award for The Red Pyramid
2013 Best Fiction Book for Children in Bulgaria for The Mark of Athena


Personally, this is my favorite series. It was the first series I ever read, and is probably part of the reason I love reading so much. Even before I read books just to read them, I was interested in the Greek myths we had to read in school. If you or your children love action, adventure, quirky characters and Greek myths, you’ll love these books. 


Friday, January 10, 2014

January theme: Mythology!

I chose mythology for this month because I got a suggestion for philosophy, and well... the best books were already taken, and I don't know when They'll be back for rent. So if your going by Greek philosophy, the next best thing is Mythology. So for this month I will be reading books about different mythology from around the world. I'll start out with modern fiction, and slide into the real stuff.
Here's the List:

The Sea of Trolls - by Nancy Farmer

The wolf and The Raven - by Diana L. Paxson

Jason and the Argonauts - by Bernard Evslin

The adventures of Ulysses - by Bernard Evslin

Monsters - by Don Nardo

Mythology, myths, legends, facts. - by Janet Parker

~Let the mayhem begin

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Passion assignment

Oh, boy...where to start. The reason I chose this topic for my blog is because I love reading. I also love movies, TV shows, anime, and comics with a good plot or story line. I guess I my passion is just a love for good stories. Most of the subjects I just listed off I either liked before I started reading, or I gave a shot because I liked reading. But nothing really beats the original written form, of stories. Every good movie out there has a much better book, and every good series was written by somebody. Comics and anime are a form of writing themselves. If I'm reading something that doesn't have a good plot, I'll probably get bored and stop reading it. Despite sitcoms, because they don't have plots really, If I decide a plot isn't interesting, or it just isn't appealing to me I'll probably never watch that show again. The point I guess I'm trying to make is that the central story is what matters the most to me. I like reading and I like creative writing. I would like to be a writer when I get older, though I know the chances of that happening, It's something I actually like doing. In conclusion, my passion for reading is the plot.

~Let the mayhem begin.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Book review for The House of Hades by Rick Riordan

Okay! I'm starting out the new year with this particular book because I just got it for Christmas, it kinda goes with the January theme and I loved it.

The House of Hades, (copyright 2013) by Rick Riordan is the fourth book in  the series: The Heroes of Olympus. I suppose the overall genre of the book in my words would be a fictional modern clash of Greek and Roman mythology, all intertwined with adventure. In my opinion Rick Riordan, has mastered how to "Talk" like a teen, and still be able to keep the vocabulary P-G. The book is full of several entertaining characters, some with completely different personalities, that will make you wonder what they are going to do next. This segment of The Heroes of Olympus adventure is the best yet! For those who have read the rest of the series, Rick has made up for his last cliffhanger. I give this book an age range of 12 and over, of course depending on you specific preference of genre and writing style. For those of you who like the more complex writing style you may have a hard time getting into or enjoying this book, but if you like simpler styles and Greek and Roman Mythology this book is something to look at.

Over all I give The House of Hades four out of five Bookmarks.



 Link for Amazon

Further breakdown

Alright just a few more bits of information I think anyone who reads this blog should know:

1) If I review a book from a series, generally it's going to be the first book of the series. Not just, oh lets say...my favorite in the series. Nope it'll be the first.

2) If I do review a book from a series and it isn't the first book, that's because its probably the newest one in the series. Basically I will be reviewing the first, or latest of a series.

3) I'm probably not going to have any reviews about really mainstream books. So if your hoping for my opinion on books like Twilight and The Hunger games, your not going to get them. I know that may "upset" some people, but I really don't see the point in reviewing books that most people have already read. So there.

4) No mainstream books = less known books. What that means is, I'm going to try to read and review the less known books to get the word out and whatnot. You get what I mean.

5)The overall goal for this blog isn't just to review books, its also to widen my, and my followers horizon. Yeah...for lack of better wording I had to use an idiom. The point is, I'm going to read books I've probably either never heard of, or never been interested in, and your going to hear about them, in the hopes that you'll read them as well.

6) Books will be rated by book marks. The lowest being no book marks, I hated it. The highest 5 book marks, mind glowingly good. The highest you will probably ever see is a four out of five book marks, as I'm surprisingly critical about rating in numbers. A five will be rare, if not mythical as in my opinion it would have to be an untopable book to earn a five.

~Let the mayhem begin.