The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series #2) by Rick Riordan

Product Details
Pub. Date: March 2007
Format: Paperback, 304pp
Age Range: 9 to 12
Series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series , #2
ISBN-13: 9781423103349
ISBN: 1423103343
Edition Description: Reprint

Synopsis

Percy Jackson, hero of the The Lightning Thief, returns to Camp Half-Blood and undertakes a perilous voyage to save the camp in this modern-day adventure with a Greek mythology twist.

Percy Jackson's seventh-grade year has been surprisingly quiet. Not a single monster has set foot on his New York prep school campus. But when an innocent game of dodgeball among Percy and his classmates turns into a death match against an ugly gang of cannibal giants, things get well, ugly. And the unexpected arrival of Percy's friend Annabeth brings more bad news: the magical borders that protect Camp Half-Blood have been poisoned by a mysterious enemy, and unless a cure is found, the only safe haven for demigods will be destroyed. Percy and his friends must journey into the Sea of Monsters to save their beloved camp. But first, Percy will discover a stunning new secret about his family one that makes him wonder whether being claimed as Poseidon's son is an honor, or simply...




My thoughts:

Somehow I ended up reading this book aloud to my children at the same time we were listening to book three on audio CD in the car. It worked out that way with library due dates. I have to say I do not recommend reading two books from the same series at the same time, we started getting the two stories mixed together! It took a couple nights of long story times to get this one done so we could stop getting mixed up.

Percy finds out that he has a brother who is a Cyclops in this story which raised some questions that I didn’t bother exploring with my children. If Zeus, Poseidon and Hades made a pact after WWII not to have any more children, which was violated when Poseidon became Percy’s father and Zeus became Thalia’s father, how in the world did he also father a Cyclops? I thought that Sally Jackson was supposed to be so wonderful that Poseidon had trouble resisting her with the outcome of Percy but then he also found someone else as desirable? Had he not worried with Percy since most of the big three children end up as cyclops and don’t violate the treaty? Does this kind of convoluted logic happen often in YA or children’s books?

Back to my thoughts on the story, this quest for the golden fleece and also to save Grover from the Cyclops (not Tyson the brother but a different one who uses the fleece to lure satyrs to his island thinking they are finding the god Pan in the Bermuda Triangle) was interesting and engaging. I like how Riordan is pulling in so many other myths and stories and it is making me want to read more about them. One of the books we bought on vacation was a book of Greek Myths in an easy reader format for my children to read to themselves. I love that this series is raising interests for them and for me in finding out more about a subject, that is one of the hallmarks of a good book, that we want to go beyond it.

While the story is above my children's current reading level they have no problem following it when I read it to them, or in the case of some of the other books in the series listening to the audio book. The slightly more teen content between the characters seems to mostly pass over their heads. My one worry is that they will not pick the book up in the future to read to themselves since we've already read it, but there are so many good books out there that it probably doesn't matter and favorite books tend to be read repeatedly so if they like these they may read them again. Mostly I am glad to enjoy a story with them and nurture their love of reading!