Rick Riordan began his young adult writing with The Lightning Thief. It is a fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology and plots the life of twelve-year-old Percy Jackson as he begins to discover his real identity of being a demigod.

Jackson is taken to Camp Half-Blood in New York, a camp for kids that are demigods to be safe from monsters that want to hurt them. Jackson and his friends Annabeth and Grover go on a mission to prevent a war between the gods Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.

The development of The Lightning Thief began with Riordan’s son. Riordan told stories about Greek myths to his son Haley as bedtime stories. After Riordan ran out of myths his son requested he make stories that still had Greek myths. Riordan created the character Percy Jackson and told about his travels across the United States to find Zeus’s lightning bolt. He told the stories he created to his son, and his son then asked his dad to write a book about Percy’s adventures.

The concept is unique and Riordan did a fantastic job of combining modern elements with ancient myths. The Lightning Thief is just the first in a whole series that is definitely worth the time.