Weekly Reading Response

NAME: Jade Lao DATE: 2/04/2010
BOOK: The Lightning Thief
AUTHOR: Rick Riordan PAGES: 1 - 92
TOTAL PAGES THIS WEEK: 93

QUESTION 1:

Do you think you would read another book by this author? Why or why not?

RESPONSE 1:

I would read another book by this author because I find it extremely interesting. I like that it combines Greek Mythology with the places in this modern time. I find it much more fun to learn on the subject through stories like this. I’ve also been really interested in Greek Mythology and it was fun to read about it and learn a bit more. Another reason why I would read another book is because I find it action packed, and very addicting. To me, it’s as if I hooked on to it as soon as I started reading the first page.

Another reason I would read it’s sequel is because it’s very descriptive. I liked how Rick Riordan made it so that it is as if I was traveling along with the characters. The words painted my mind with the scenery and I can imagine the smells and the tastes of the food. “I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt,” this was an example of how descriptive the author was, and I enjoyed reading this part imagining sitting in a chair looking at beautiful scenery.


QUESTION 2:

What other character(s) beside the main character is really important to the story? How and why?
RESPONSE 2:

One really important character to the book is Chiron. In Greek Mythology, Chiron was a centaur (half-horse half-man) who trained great heroes like Hercules. In this book he is the activity director for a summer camp called Camp Half-Blood. Half-bloods are people who had one parent that was human and the other one was en Olympian god, like Zeus. Anyway, Chiron trains people to fight with swords and shoot bows. Before the main character (Percy Jackson) reaches this summer camp, he knew this centaur as a Greek teacher in a wheelchair. “And then he did rise from the wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn’t move……it was the front of an animal,” I found this section interesting because I myself would be surprised if my favorite teacher turned out to be part horse.