Book Review: "The Trials Of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle" By Rick Riordan

"The Trials Of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle" by Rick Riordan has already been published so it's available as both an e-book and a hardcover. This book is written for grades five to nine but I certainly liked it myself. Parents would especially enjoy reading this to their children.

Zeus is my father and he's angry. It seems he's decided to punish me by making "the handsomest, most talented, most popular god in the pantheon" a human sixteen year old kid. This is the basic premise of "The Trials Of Apollo". Apollo is the God of music, poetry, prophecy, plague and healing. He and his chariot pull the sun across the sky and now he's a teenager with no godly powers. There are many monsters, Gods and mortals who would love to use Apollo's weakness against him so his only choice is to try to get to camp Half-Blood where he will be safe. Apollo figures if he can hang around earth for a few years by helping out another God, his father will give his powers back. That's the way it has worked in the past at least. 

Four stars because kids will love it.

Rick Riordan is an extremely popular writer for the young adult genre and I can see by the reviews on Goodreads that nothing has changed in his likability through this book. I have read his Percy Jackson series years ago when I was babysitting and I found that having read previous Riordan books very helpful in the enjoyment factor of this one. In fact, I would recommend reading both his Olympian series and his Roman series books to make this one even better, it brings the whole ball of wax together, so to speak. As an adult I found that this book was about a three out of five but if I was reading this to my children it would be at least a four. I am certain that kids would love the action and visual details that are given in this book. The Apollo character was really funny as he learned how to be human and his complaints brought a smile to my face. This book also has a subtle moral theme to it about compassion and selfishness that I found refreshing.

If you have children you certainly could not go wrong here. I think any child would be thrilled if you started reading Rick Riordan's books to them and happily there are lots to devour. As a stand alone for adults it's a little bit of a shallow pool in that it reminds me of many Disney movies, great visuals, good theme but a little thin on the meaty center. I also have read all of the Harry Potter series and would not make a comparison of this to it. The "Percy Jackson series" is more along those Harry Potter lines. But then maybe if I'd read all the other Riordan books I wouldn't have felt like I was missing an essential unspoken element.

My final verdict is a big thumbs up for this book for children and any parent reading these to their kids would be a hero of the first magnitude. Even better you won't be bored as you read because your child's excitement will be all you need to keep you going.

Best,

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