The kids and I really enjoyed the Percy Jackson series, which the (then) 7 year old and I each read independently (in paper form) last summer, and then followed with the audio books that all three of us listened to (sometimes a fourth on weekends...) Rick Riordan has a great ability to take some of the mundane details of being a kid in today's busy world and interleave it with the fantastic--in the Percy series, that meant Greek gods and goddesses running amok in modern USA.
Riordan's newest book, The Red Pyramid, attempts to do for Egyptian mythology what the Percy books did for Greek mythology. And therein lies the biggest rub about this new book. At least for me as a grown-up, Greek mythology was familiar due to an interest and the ever-awesome (still in my possession) D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. It seemed my 7 year old 2nd/3rd grader had at least passing awareness of the likes of Zeus and Poseidon that pre-dated his reading of the Percy books.Egyptian mythology is a big black hole to me. I've heard of Ra, and know that Isis was somebody important, that's about as far as I have gotten. So some of the fun of the Percy series ("what is he going to have Hermes, the messenger god, wear this time?") is missing because of the lack of familiarity. However, Riordan does a good job of grounding the gods and goddesses, explaining their roles, helping fill in the blanks. But those who are first picking up this book should be warned (particularly for those reluctant readers who prefer reading without effort) that there's a fair amount of new characters/content presented, with funny-sounding names like Set and Sekmet and Bast and Horus. It takes a little while to get the names straight, figure out how to pronounce them, and who does what.
The book follows the story of Carter and his sister Sadie (Carter is about 14, Sadie a few years younger.) They don't really know each other, only spending a day together once or twice a year. Sadie lives with their maternal grandparents in England, Carter travels with his Egyptologist father. Each (naturally) envies the life the other leads. The book is told in switching first-person perspective, alternating between Carter chapters (usually each POV has more than one chapter in a row) and Sadie chapters.
One of my observations as an adult was that I often got confused about child kid was narrating the chapter. The chapters are headed by the name of the narrator, so it was quick to check, but it's worth mentioning that there can be some confusion when reading "wait a minute, she doesn't know how to...oh, it's Carter telling this part!" The author tries to clear this up by giving Sadie some Britishisms and Carter being bad at basketball, but the cues aren't enough, even with the little bit of sibling banter that generally precedes each chapter to tell you who has taken over the narration.The book is fast-paced, there is a lot of action, as is typical for Riordan's middle-grade works. My other concern, though, is that it's really really crazy long. I usually finish mid-grade books in 2-3 days. This one took me about 15, which is unheard of in the Land of Reading Children's Fiction. I am definitely worried about giving this one to my 8 year old who is of late famous for not finishing books.In spite of the different terminology, long length, and slight confusion on who the narrator is, it's still a good read. There's plenty of interest and intrigue. Many skin-of-the-teeth escapes (a few more than I prefer, but not nearly as many as in a Dan Brown novel.) The characters are endearing. They go to interesting settings, some in England, Egypt, France, and many in the U.S. There is enough description and detail to get an image of where they're located without tolkein-esque diversions. The narrative voice for both Carter and Sadie is funny and sarcastic and very current in the way "kids these days" talk.
There are some deaths (wouldn't be children's fiction without it, right? Sigh) but Riordan creates a world in which even death isn't a barrier to seeing people, so they are handled well and of course he avoids gory descriptions of human's demise. Most of that happens off-camera. There are some close-calls, presumed deaths that turn out to be not-deaths. Nothing that's too shocking, nothing that would be too hard to handle for an average middle-grade reader. There's a lot of weapon use by Carter (Sadie has a different kind of magic, less combat-related.) Sadie does quite a lot of flirting/thinking about a boy, which given that I believe her age for the story is only 12 seemed excessive (I had thought she was 14, but later in the story I got the idea she was only 12...) but it's all talk, and lightly handled.There are plenty of hooks left for future stories to take off with, but the story does end on a satisfying resolution of major plot conflicts. I'm sure we'll be reading the next installment in a year or so, and I'm sure Riordan will have dreamed up new demons for the kids to battle, new conflicts, new weapons, and new tangles, and we'll gobble it up.
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