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A review by kathydavie
The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
5.0
First in the Kane Chronicles urban fantasy series for middle-grade readers.
In 2011, The Red Pyramid was nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and in 2010, it won the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Favorite Book, Young Adult Fantasy.
My Take
This was good! Someone had told me that this was simply the Percy Jackson and the Olympians but with Egyptian gods…and they're wrong. For one thing, the Kane Chronicles is less juvenile in its writing approach and, yes, there are parallels. There is interaction with gods, children are the hero and heroines, and there is a bloodline involved. Oh, yes, and they have adventures.
This is not a story of good and evil, but of balance between chaos and order. Get your kids to read it for the adventure and magic, and they'll learn about ancient Egyptian culture and its stories (I learned a lot which made more sense of what I had known), they'll learn geography through monuments (I want to Google "obelisks" and find out where more are as well as what the links are between Egyptian and ancient Mexican cultures), they'll learn about a version of afterlife, and they'll learn that we have the ability to make good choices.
I am so looking forward to reading the next in the lineup! Oh, and did I mention, it's funny.
In 2011, The Red Pyramid was nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and in 2010, it won the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Favorite Book, Young Adult Fantasy.
My Take
This was good! Someone had told me that this was simply the Percy Jackson and the Olympians but with Egyptian gods…and they're wrong. For one thing, the Kane Chronicles is less juvenile in its writing approach and, yes, there are parallels. There is interaction with gods, children are the hero and heroines, and there is a bloodline involved. Oh, yes, and they have adventures.
This is not a story of good and evil, but of balance between chaos and order. Get your kids to read it for the adventure and magic, and they'll learn about ancient Egyptian culture and its stories (I learned a lot which made more sense of what I had known), they'll learn geography through monuments (I want to Google "obelisks" and find out where more are as well as what the links are between Egyptian and ancient Mexican cultures), they'll learn about a version of afterlife, and they'll learn that we have the ability to make good choices.
I am so looking forward to reading the next in the lineup! Oh, and did I mention, it's funny.