Welcome to: Ancient Greece
Technically, the Percy Jackson books largely take place in New York, with some quests across the United States, but overall, they're all about Ancient Greece. While these books aren't the best for specific history questions, like who led the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae (answer: King Leonidas I), or who Pericles was (answer: a famous leader of the Athenians), they were pretty helpful for me as I studied Ancient Greece in middle school and as I went over the Greek chapters in my History of Western Civilizations course this year.
Percy Jackson is a demigod, a child of a Greek god and a mortal. Obviously then, this series focuses on Greek mythology. After reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians, I can name all twelve Olympians and that the Greeks named them patrons of, I'm fairly good at the mythological family tree (from Ouranos to Kronos to Zeus, etc.), and Greek mythology is one of my best subjects, which was really cool when I had a whole chapter and test on it.
While this series doesn't officially teach anything, it reinforced a lot of the textbook information and helped my short attention span absorb the lessons better. Rick Riordan's books also got me interested in the mythology and culture of Ancient Greece (as well as Rome and Egypt, but that's a different post).
Rick Riordan also has (amid several others) two side books, titled Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, and Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes. In Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, there is a short introduction describing the myth of the gods' birth and takeover of the age following. From there, the book offers Percy Jackson's perspective of fifteen of the most prominent Greek deities, including Zeus, Hera, Persephone, Hestia, Hermes, Ares, and etc. Each chapter also has at least one myth about the god. The best part is it's all narrated in Percy's unique style, so readers are learning about the gods without having all the boring textbook lingo to distract them. While I haven't read Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, I imagine it's really similar to Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, but featuring Perseus, Atalanta, and other heroes.
Percy Jackson is a demigod, a child of a Greek god and a mortal. Obviously then, this series focuses on Greek mythology. After reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians, I can name all twelve Olympians and that the Greeks named them patrons of, I'm fairly good at the mythological family tree (from Ouranos to Kronos to Zeus, etc.), and Greek mythology is one of my best subjects, which was really cool when I had a whole chapter and test on it.
While this series doesn't officially teach anything, it reinforced a lot of the textbook information and helped my short attention span absorb the lessons better. Rick Riordan's books also got me interested in the mythology and culture of Ancient Greece (as well as Rome and Egypt, but that's a different post).
 |
| All images courtesy of google.com |
So that's it for Ancient Greece! Next on the map: Egypt.
Comments
Post a Comment