Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

Some of you may be very surprised to see this as an Avoid with such a High concern rating. The primary reason is actually not what happens here. It’s actually not what happens anywhere in this initial series (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) or even the second series (The Kane Chronicles) in the much longer overall Percy Jackson saga. This book is a part of our ‘series that go off the rails’ because of what happens 3/5ths of the way through the third series (The Heroes of Olympus) and in an increasing amount throughout a line of books that are still coming out (Magnus Chase, Trials of Apollo, Daughters of the Deep and The Sun, the Star, etc. You can see a chronological layout of the series and books on the author’s website if interested). The later books (starting with “House of Hades'' and continuing on throughout) use the setting of “gods” and “demigods” to present kids with a non-biblical view of love/marriage and gender/identity. The use of “gods'' to deliver this content adds a new element to the danger this brings to children. The intensity, frequency and focus continues to increase as the books go on. While the above should be more than enough for Christians to move on from this popular collection of books, there are a few more things we wanted to make sure to point out. The biggest of these revolves around the center theme of this book. We as Christians are probably guilty of giving Greek mythology too much of a pass in the name of education. We would never allow our kids to devour books that draw them into a world of all types of Hindu “gods”... and yet we give Greek pagan gods a free pass. This is something many of us need to be a lot more cautious of. This series represents the pinnacle of this concern. This series is saturated with the Greek pagan view of the world being true, full of gods and goddesses and demigods and more. They explain the way the world is in total contrast to Christianity. The trip to the underworld, for example, gives a very non-biblical and confusing view of life after death, close enough to add a lot of confusion, but in stark contrast to the biblical view of heaven, hell, judgment and salvation. As an example, a place is shown from Greek mythology where the ‘best of the best’ go (works based salvation) and Percy hopes to get there. There is an odd Oracle character who sees and shares the future (feels witch-like). Sacrifices are given to the gods. An example of another confusing comment comes when Percy says, “You’re telling me there is a God?!” (as if it is the most absurd thing ever) to which a wise character says, “Well, now God - capital G , God, that’s a different matter altogether. We shan’t deal with the metaphysical” and then goes on to bombard the young reader with endless talk of the “gods” who are responsible for everything we see around us. In another place Percy says, “I found myself muttering a prayer, but I wasn’t quite sure who I was praying to” and “down here (in the underworld) only one god mattered”. Terms like “divine” and “immortal” are thrown around, we hear comments like “thank the gods” and an instruction to “pray to the god of your choice”. Related to the point above… while the author is a bit cautious on how it is presented, it is also a bit odd for a children’s book to be based on the idea that gods are wandering around earth having children with humans. At one point they mention the goddess of marriage and say that “of course she wouldn’t go around having affairs with mortals. That’s her husband’s job”. There are also affairs between the gods. One of the main characters points out the husband who is being cheated on was crippled as almost a reason for why Aphrodite, the cheater, cheated. One character plays a game where deer hunt humans. He yells, “Die human! Die silly polluting nasty person”. Other things to know about: Percy is certainly a modern immoral main character that we see a lot. He is a troubled kid who gets in trouble all the time. He mentions school classes put him to sleep. He makes a comment that he wished he had decked (punched) a mean girl classmate. He calls certain girls ugly. Mentions he cheated on a paper in the past in school. When he sees a camper he describes her as very large and mentions an XXXL shirt. He calls her friends big and mean. Stepdad drinks and smokes. There are a few violent moments. The Minotaur squeezes Percy’s mom’s neck, choking her. Percy then breaks off his horn and stabs him with it. “Hell hounds” come from the underworld. There is a mention of a potential for millions to die if war breaks out between the gods. A monster’s head is chopped off. A monster mentions using an ax on people. The visit to the oracle is disturbing. There are strange things everywhere, including a corpse that comes to life and begins talking. Percy is given some very disturbing visions from one of the gods. There is disturbing story of a man in a trench coat stalking him on the playground when he was in 3rd grade. Curses are mentioned. A few violent comments: “sliced him to pieces”, “Die!”, “kicking him in the soft spot”, “This was suicide”, etc.