The Lightning Thief
by Rick Riordan
The Lightening Thief is the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. “You need to read all the books in order, because each has major character developments and new characters, and if you don’t, you’ll get extremely lost” according to Alex who gave us his best Rick Riordan books.
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At least for my kids, the series that is hands down the most like Harry Potter is the Percy (aka Perseus) Jackson series by ex-English teacher Rick Riordan. As in the Harry Potter series, the main protagonist discovers something about himself and ends up in a magical place.
Combining Greek myths with modern America (Mt Olympus is now on top of the Empire State Building) and learning difficulties with special powers (dyslexia helps with reading ancient Greek), there is a lot to love about this series, which seems to captivate kids anywhere from age 8 to age 14. If Harry Potter is set in Hogwarts, the Percy Jackson series is set at Camp Halfblood, a summer camp in Long Island, and it is from there that the adventures start out. If Harry has Hermione and Ron, Percy has Annabeth and Grover.
The book to start with in the series is The Lightning Thief (or you can take the plunge and buy the Percy Jackson boxset: it’s hard to go wrong). Rick Riordan has also written a number of other series you can move on to, which are explained by 13-year-old Alex (my son) here.
From our article Books like Harry Potter
Other books by Rick Riordan
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Harry Potter: the Complete Series
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Reckless: The Petrified Flesh
Cornelia Funke, translated by Oliver Latsch
