Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles Series #1) by Rick Riordan (audio)

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

Since their mother's death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane.
One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.
Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them —Set— has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe - a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.

My thoughts:
I listened to this book in the car with my children.  We loved Riordan's Percy Jackson series as well as the first two books in the Lost Hero series, so this seemed like  it was going to be a good fit.  Something about this one though never managed to grab me.  My children seemed to like it well enough, but I had trouble getting into it and it took us forever to manage to get through it all.  Maybe because I am mostly unfamiliar with Egyptian gods, maybe because the characters were so sarcastic with each other and bickered so much, or maybe it was something else, but I would call this my least favorite of Riordan's books.  I am not sure I will be looking for any more books in the series.

After their mother's death six years ago Carter and Sadie were split up, Carter has been traveling with their archaeologist father and Sadie has lived in London with their maternal grandparents.  Once a year they get together but otherwise Carter lives out of suitcases like a nomad and Sadie has a pretty settled life.  On this one day their father unleashes 5 gods at the London Museum and then is imprisoned with one of them.  Carter and Sadie get a crash course in the powered they hold, magic they were unaware of, family members step out to help them, and they have to work together to put things right while traveling through the duwat, Europe, Egypt and the USA.  It almost felt like Riordan was using the same formula as he used for Percy Jackson and the other hero books and just changing it to Egyptian gods and folklore.  If my children are insistent enough I am sure we will read the next book, but I have no current plans to look for it.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781423113386
  • Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children
  • Publication date: 5/4/2010
  • Pages: 516
  • Age range: 9 - 11 Years            

1 comment:

  1. I keep meaning to get this series for Aidan. Thanks for the reminder.

    ReplyDelete