Rick Riordan is apparently better known for writing mysteries than children’s novels, but this is the second book in his Percy Jackson series. Book 1 was reviewed here; book 3′s review will probably be within the next week, and book 4 is set to be released in a couple months.

Percy, if you will recall, is a school troublemaker sort with ADHD and dyslexia; those are both the result of the fact that he is the son of a Greek god. Which god, I won’t reveal, for those who haven’t read the first book, but it’s not exactly a secret (if you look at the packaging of any book). He now spends his summers at Camp Half-Blood, for heroes like him, and he has almost made it through his seventh-grade year without horrible things happening — until the last day. The school bully somehow has Laistrygonians (large monsters) who volunteer to be on his dodgeball team, against Percy. Luckily, Percy has a friend, Tyson, who manages to help him not die. His friend Annabeth (one of Athena’s daughters) comes to rescue him from the melee and takes him to Camp Half-Blood, where something awful has happened: the tree, that is a guardian of the whole camp, has been poisoned. There is a way to save the tree, but it requires a difficult quest — can it be accomplished, and can they do it in time? (more…)

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