Where to Start with Rick Riordan
Rick Riordan is an American author and former middle school teacher who became one of the most widely read children’s writers of the twenty-first century. His novels retell Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse mythology as modern adventure stories, blending genuine scholarship with fast pacing and humour. He has a rare talent for making ancient source material feel alive and relevant to young readers, and his books have led millions of them back to the original myths.
Start here
The Lightning Thief
Rick Riordan · 377 pages · 2005 · Easy
Themes: mythology, adventure, identity, friendship
Percy Jackson is twelve, dyslexic, and has just vaporized his maths teacher. Within days he’s at a summer camp for the children of Greek gods, learning that his absent father is Poseidon and that Zeus’s master lightning bolt has been stolen. Guess who gets blamed. The Lightning Thief is the book that launched one of the defining fantasy series of the twenty-first century.
Why Start Here
It’s the foundation of everything Riordan has written since. Percy’s voice, wry, self-deprecating, and immediately likeable, is the engine that drives not just this book but an entire mythology-spanning universe. Riordan was a middle school teacher before he was a novelist, and it shows: he knows exactly how to make a twelve-year-old narrator feel authentic rather than cute.
The Greek mythology is woven into the modern world with real cleverness. Olympus sits above the Empire State Building. Medusa runs a roadside garden statue business. The Underworld has a waiting room. These aren’t just jokes. They’re a way of making ancient stories feel alive, and they work so well that readers routinely end up seeking out the original myths afterward.
Start here because every other Riordan series assumes you know Percy’s world. The Kane Chronicles, Magnus Chase, and the Trials of Apollo all connect back to this book and the rules it establishes.
What to Expect
A road-trip adventure across America with Greek monsters, gods who behave like dysfunctional celebrities, and a hero who narrates his own near-death experiences with deadpan humour. The pacing is relentless. Riordan ends nearly every chapter on a cliffhanger, which makes the book almost impossible to put down. Beneath the fun, there’s a genuine thread about what it means to feel different and how the things that make you an outsider can also be your greatest strengths.
Alternatives
Rick Riordan · 516 pages · 2010 · Easy
Carter and Sadie Kane haven’t lived together since their mother’s death. He travels the world with their Egyptologist father. She lives with her grandparents in London. When their father accidentally unleashes the Egyptian god Set, they discover they’re descended from pharaohs and that ancient magic runs in their blood. The Red Pyramid is Riordan’s Egyptian mythology adventure, and it’s the best alternative entry into his work.
Why Start Here
If you already know you love Egyptian mythology, or if you want a Riordan book that stands more independently from the Percy Jackson universe, this is the one. The Kane Chronicles use a different narrative structure: Carter and Sadie take turns narrating, recording their story as a transcript, which gives the book a distinctive rhythm. Their sibling bickering is sharp and funny, and the cultural specificity of their family, Black, British-American, and rooted in Egyptian heritage, adds a dimension that the Percy Jackson books don’t have.
Riordan’s research into Egyptian mythology goes deep. The magic system, based on hieroglyphs, the Duat, and the hosting of gods, feels genuinely different from the Greek-gods-as-superpowered-parents model. If you want to see Riordan stretch into new territory rather than repeat himself, start here.
What to Expect
A globe-trotting adventure from London to Cairo to Phoenix, with two narrators who constantly interrupt and correct each other. The mythology is rich and less familiar than the Greek canon, which makes it feel fresher. The book is longer than The Lightning Thief and takes a little more time to set up its world, but once it hits its stride, the pacing is just as relentless. Expect explosive magic, ancient rivalries, and a pair of siblings figuring out how to trust each other again.