The Lightning Thief By Rick Riordan

In the short book of “No Heroes, No Villains” by Steven Phillips On June 28, 1972, a Transit Authority patrolman, John Skagen, was on his way home from testifying at court for an arrest he made a couple of weeks prior. Skagen was taking the train home to the Bronx when he saw and stopped James Richardson who was awaiting the subway train which would take him to work at Lincoln Hospital. Skagen ordered him to “put up your hands, and get against the wall”. Skagen’s actions seem unprovoked and unnecessary. After a short tussle the two men exchanged shots and Richardson fled the scene on foot. Two other officers that were on the main street above the subway station rushed to the scene.

In the book Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, Percy is your typical 12-year-old boy who is a troublemaker in school and lives with his mother’s abusive husband. Percy’s life changes when he accused of stealing Zeus’ master bolt and attacked by monsters. Percy’s mother is killed along the way towards a camp called Camp Half-Blood and trains his heritage as a demigod. Percy is then sent on a heroic quest, with friends, to prove his innocence and along the way, rescue his mother from Hades. After a long and arduous journey of being chased by monsters, Percy managed to return the lightning bolt and save his mother. Percy is then betrayed by a close friend, as the friend was the thief, and escaped while warning them of the true mastermind.

The Lightning Thief” is a fantasy fiction written by Rick Riordan. The book starts off with a normal kid going to school named Percy and his friend Grover. They were going on a field trip well the field trip didn't work out so well Percy’s teacher was some sort of creature trying to kill him. Also Percy’s other teacher was a nice demigod who gave him a pen that would turn into a sword, What percy didn't know was that Grover was half goat. Turned out Percy was also a demigod and stole the lightning bolt, but he had no clue what they were talking about. Grover brought him to camp and was the son of Poseidon and meant some people like Annabeth and one named Luke that gave him a shield for his mission, but little did you know the sword had the

Rick Riordan’s ‘Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief’ focuses on Greek mythology and interprets this into a children’s story. Throughout the story, there are many references and adaptations to mythological tales, and each one is portrayed in a different way. Riordan writes this story as though Hercules, Zeus and Poseidon were still around today, and this would be the effect they would have on people in this day and age.

The book I read for my Political Science class was In God's Underground, by Richard Wurmbrand.

The Book Thief (2013), directed by Brian Percival, is about a young old girl living in Nazi Germany (between 1939 and 1943) in the fictional town of Molching, Germany. Death narrates the story of the main protagonist, Liesel Meminger, beginning when she is nine years old and suffering from the death of her brother and separation from her mother. Liesel then goes to live with Hans and Rosa Hubermann (played by Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson). When Liesel arrives, she is illiterate and is made fun of in school by the other children. Hans, a painter and accordion player, teaches her how to read, using the book Liesel took from her brother's burial: The Grave Digger's Handbook. Over the course of the movie, Liesel develops a love for reading and decides to steal books because of the economical hardships associated with World War II. Liesel's foster parents also decide to help a young Jewish man named Max, whose father fought with Hans as in World War One as German soldiers. The Book Thief illustrates a different perspective in regards to the Nazi Regimen and its effects on the German people, specifically children.

Garrett Morgan, an inventor of the 20th century, saved many lives with his inventions. The Scope article, “The Fire Breather”, Informational text, “Could You Be the Next Garrett Morgan?” and the Discovery ED video “Garrett Morgan” all give good evidence on Garrett's most remarkable inventions and his perseverance.

The small city of Brownsville is small in both population and mind. Even though there are individuals who commute morning and night from country to country, there is no unity. Growing up, I had never experienced a “diverse” city. In the city of Brownsville, Hispanics are the majority. As a result, individuals who saw somebody of a different race or ethnicity would make negative and offensive comments towards them. At times, these offensive comments were accidental. Other times, the offensive comments were on purpose and intended to appear humorous to friends. Apart from discriminatory remarks to outsiders, this happened amongst people of my Hispanic community.

Howard Thurman removes the window dressing in the African American experience of segregation in America. Thurman in his book, “The Luminous Darkness” paints an obscure portrait that delved deep into the consciousness of Black men, women and children freshly freed from chattel slavery. Two hundred years of slavery and one hundred years of darkness seeping into each soul perpetuated by an evil explained only through the Word of God. Although this book was published in the 60’s, the stigma segregation continues resonate in the souls of those who remember and perhaps even in the souls of those who do not.

I feel that what Claire Farrer means by living in the 'mythic present' is that although most Indian culture is perceived long to have been different, it is in fact very live and active today. I will give specific examples from her book, Thunder Rides a Black Horse, to support my arguments of what the 'mythic present' actually means and list many examples of events that could be considered to be in the 'mythic present.'

As a growing topic of discussion, privacy in our society has stirred quite some concern. With the increase of technology and social networking our standards for privacy have been altered and the boundary between privacy and government has been blurred. In the article, Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets, Peter Singer addresses the different aspects of privacy that are being affected through the use of technology. The role of privacy in a democratic society is a tricky endeavor, however, each individual has a right to privacy. In our society, surveillance undermines privacy and without privacy there can be no democracy.

The book Seize the Storm, is written by Michael Cadnum. I chose this book because my dad actually read this book and told me about it a few years earlier, and found it in the library and it looked cool so why not choose this book. The title of the book “Seize the Storm” just sounds like that would be a great book, which it was, plus the cover looked very cool.

Words can influence the mind in many ways that thought may not be able to. They are carefully placed and shared in different ways by each and every individual. Words have powerful impacts and can majorly impact how one may think, feel, or even lead others to feel. Written by Markus Zusak, “The Book Thief” describes a story of an innocent foster girl, Liesel Meminger, who resides in Munich, Germany at one of the most troubling time periods in history, Nazi Germany. A tale narrated by the one and only Death himself, shows the perspective from his point of view, as well as others, describing how Liesel had been seized away from her birth mother at a young age, and put into a foster family. Her new family, the Hubermanns. As she matures and grows into a more critical thinker, understanding and analyzing everything that carefully happens around her. Her foster-father, Hans guides her and teaches her how to read, which little does she know sparks her journey, the art of stealing books. Liesel soon discovers that words aren 't simply lines on a page, they are strong emotions packed into a form that merely is held in her delicate hands. Not only did she hold the pages of emotion, she held a power, a dangerous weapon of words, a weapon of control, and every book that she had stolen was giving her unimaginable power that made her think in ways that she would’ve never thought she could have. As with Nazi propaganda, and a gift that enabled her to broaden her worldview. Liesel evolves

This book review is on Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond. The book was very interesting but a lot of the information could have been cut because it’s a bit too long. Jared Diamond is a scientist, not a historian and he’s American. He upset many historians around the world by the way he bashes Europeans. However, he did win a Pulitzer Prize for the book so that says something.

A twelve-year-old Percy Jackson believed that he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia. He gets in trouble wherever he goes. He has a best friend Grover (who is also his protector) who’s always been with him.