Revamping Mythology-- Researching Rick Riordan

“Being a lifelong learner is a lot more than taking a standardized test. It means being curious about things. It means having questions that don’t always have answers…" ~Rick Riordan

My post today is something along the lines of propaganda in the sense that I will not be summarizing my activities today (which involved programming meetings and more spreadsheets) but rather elaborating on a particular project of great interest to me. So I thought I'd share.

On June 11, Arts & Letters Live is thrilled to present our first BooksmART Festival at the DMA. This day-long event will feature many well-known authors and illustrators of children's literature and provides the community with an opportunity of working with these creative minds and learning from them. Part of my job in preparation for this event is to research some of our guests to help prepare staff members for their introductions. Honestly, I cannot think of a more enjoyable job. I spent my morning reading excerpts from young adult novels, watching their movie trailers, and finding book reviews. It was heaven. Today I had the great pleasure of discovering Rick Riordan.

Perhaps I have been living under a rock for the past decade, but I have never heard of Mr. Riordan, who evidently is quite famous, after the popularity of his young adult adventure series Percy Jackson and the Olympians skyrocketed upon publication of the first book, "The Lightning Thief."

 Has anyone heard of this series?? In it, Riordan brings ancient Greek mythology into the modern day world with a modern day middle schooler hero. It is up to Percy Jackson, an ADHD/dyslexic middle schooler to defend America from terrorizing Greek gods. Some may say it's a sort of rip-off of Harry Potter, but in my opinion, as there are no witches and wizards there is no plagiarism, and kids obviously love more presence in the fantasy genre. Why is that? In an interview on his website (www.rickriordan.com) Riordan says: “It’s easier to read about people doing amazing things like casting spells and riding dragons than about people doing mundane things like going to school. Kids already know that life. It’s nice to pretend you are someone else once in a while.” Riordan should know what kids are looking for these days as he was a middle school English teacher before he became a full-time writer. Guess what he taught in his English classes? Yep, Greek mythology. Why? Because the myths are always fascinating stories! I remember receiving my copy of D'Aulaire's Greek myths and not being able to put it down till my brain devoured the contents. Though the Percy Jackson series is intended for middle grade readers, I am excited to pick up a new book that will have me as entranced as Rowling's Harry Potter. Well, maybe as entranced...




Oh, and it's already been made into a movie...

The series Riordan is presenting at the BooksmART Festival involves Egyptian gods and goddesses and hieroglyphics. It's called The Kane Chronicles. The second book, "The Throne of Fire" just came out May 3rd. The first book, if anyone is interested, is called "The Red Pyramid."

The best part about these novels? The amount of influence that kids had over them. The Percy Jackson series began as a bedtime story! Riordan ran out of myths to tell his son, who insisted, then, that his father make up one. Thus, Riordan brought the fantastic classical stories into our world. It was his son who encouraged him to put it all into a book. His son, by the way, was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and thereby inspired him to make the protagonist thus also. The idea is that learning differences should not be shameful, but rather a "badge of honor." The first readers of Riordan's manuscript was his middle school class-- fifth period, right after lunch. TOUGH. But, they loved it! They gave him suggestions for the title, for the way Percy Jackson's sword works etc. Much of the enthusiasm and soul of the work comes from the kids in Riordan's life.

Here I am, writing as though I've read the novels. After researching so much today, I feel like I have! As soon as I finish Jane Eyre I'm going to pick up a copy of "The Red Pyramid."

For all the adults out there, he has a mystery series for us too! It's called Tres Navarre and takes place in Texas. I'd like to read these books as well.

All of my information on Riordan came from his website found at this link.

Still loving Dallas. But not as much as I love y'all :)