Percy Jackson and the Olympians 2 – The Sea of Monsters

Rick Riordan's The Sea of Monsters is the second Percy Jackson book, a funny and fast Greek-myth adventure for 10 year olds with a game of dodgeball against cannibals on the last day of school.

What happens

Percy has nearly made it through a whole school year without being expelled. Then he dreams that his friend Grover is running for his life from something in a storm. And on that last day, some large new kids turn up in PE.

They're giants, and they want him for lunch.

Percy's best friend at school is Tyson, a huge, gentle boy who is scared of almost everything and cries a lot. He's also a lot tougher than anyone could have guessed. Then Annabeth appears out of nowhere to help, and it turns out there's trouble at Camp Half-Blood too.

Getting there means a taxi driven by three old sisters who share one eye between them (and keep fighting over it at seventy miles an hour). And when they arrive, two bronze bulls that breathe fire are charging across the hill where monsters should never be able to reach.

Percy tells the whole thing himself, and that's where most of the fun is. He's sarcastic, a bit hopeless and very loyal. Annabeth decides the English name for the giants is "Canadians". The monsters are properly scary and the jokes keep coming anyway.

It's also a story about sticking up for your friends. Annabeth is rude to Tyson from the moment she meets him, and the school bully uses an ugly word about him too. Percy won't put up with either.

It comes after The Lightning Thief. Percy explains enough that a new reader could follow along, but the friendships land harder if they've met everyone before.

Does your reader love a narrator who chats to them like a mate while everything around him explodes? Then this is a great pick.

What to read next

If they come out of it wanting more gods and monsters, Percy Jackson's Greek Gods tells the old myths from the very beginning, starting with Chaos, in the same cheeky voice.