The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan is the first book in The Heroes of Olympus Series. I listened to the first two books and will definitely be listening to or reading the rest of this series. 

Rick Riordan writes books that kids enjoy reading. The stories are fast paced, the chapters are short, the text size is larger, and the there is more white space on each page, so even though these books are thick, they are not intimidating to students who struggle with reading. 

The Lost Hero follows a new Hero, Jason who has lost his memory. He ends up at Camp Half-Blood with two other Heroes: Piper and Leo who will accompany Jason on a quest to save Hera. As in the Percy Jackson series, Riordan does a wonderful job of teaching about Greek and Roman mythology in a way that is incredibly fun. He also writes characters who know what it takes to be a good friend. 

My grandson, Isaac, loves these books and has read all of them. He's been after me to get them read, so I am. I called him after finishing the first book because of the Jack London reference in it. The wolf house in the story is located on Jack London's abandoned estate, so I was able to talk to Isaac about The Call of the Wild, and White Fang - both excellent classic books. 

The Son of Neptune is book two in the series, and it follows Percy Jackson, who has also lost his memory and has landed in the Roman half-blood camp. He meets Hazel, a girl who is no longer in her correct time period and has many secrets and Frank who feels he is too much of a klutz to ever be a good hero. Together they will go on a quest to keep the earth goddess from awakening. Riordan uses humor and an exciting story line to keep his readers turning pages. 

Rick Riordan, I hope you have a very long writing career because you do a lot to get and keep kids reading. Thank you. 

The covers of this series are gorgeous. 

Link to our NICU book registry if you'd like to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. 

Read to a child today even if that child is you.