RICK RIORDAN- An American novelist, teacher and inspirational parent by Devashree

Have nothing to read? Well, I was in that situation too; 

till I heard about the Percy Jackson series and the books’ wonderful author, Rick Riordan. He is an American novelist who has written many award winning books such as Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus etc. He writes for adults too. So read on if you want to know about his life, family, inspirations and ideas, and of course books.

Childhood and early life

Camp capers

Let’s start at the beginning, before Rick Riordan was famous let’s start at his childhood and other careers. Rick Riordan was born on 5^th June 1964 in san Antonio, Texas. He was given the name Richard Russell {rick} Riordan Jr. after his father. He was an only child. Richard attended Alamo heights where he was editor of his high school newspaper. Once he got into a lot of trouble for publishing an underground newspaper that made fun of his school especially the football team. He loved reading lord of the rings, Norse and Greek mythology. Another one of his hobbies was to swim. After school he got into the university of Texas where he got a double major in history and English. Some of his jobs before he started full time writing were a music director at camp capers (that’s where he got the idea of camp half-blood in his books) and he was also a teacher at presidio high school and new Braunfels. 

Books

 Rick Riordan’s books are very famous but he says “I didn't anticipate such an exponential growth.” If anybody finds writing hard, an advice to you from him is that “writing is like a sport. It’s like athletics. If you don’t practice, you don’t get any better.” He has written 42 books and 4 complete series till now. A list of his books are given below: -

• Percy Jackson- it is the start of a whole new world about gods and demigods.
• Kane chronicles- these books are about magicians and Egyptian gods.
• Tres Navarre- adult fiction, detective novels
• Heroes of Olympus- these books are about romans meeting Greeks. Are they going to unite and defeat the giants or are they going to start world war three among themselves?
• The 39 clues [vespers rising and maze of bones] this novel series is not only written by Rick Riordan but a number of different authors. It is about two children who discover that their family is the most influential family in history.
• Magnus Chase and the sword of summer - is all about Norse gods and mythology.
•  The Trials of Apollo- can you imagine a god turned into a mortal? What is he going to do? Read this book to find out.
• Percy Jackson and the Greek gods- mythological stories about Greek gods
• Percy Jackson and the Greek heroes- mythological stories about Greek heroes
• A number of other short stories.

His favourite characters from his own series are Tyson and Grover because they are funny and he likes writing about them. His favourite god is Poseidon god of water and sea life and his favourite goddess is Athena goddess of wisdom and warfare.  

                Family

Patrick Riordan

Rick Riordan Sr.

Haley Riordan

Lyn Belisle

I’m going to talk about Rick’s family in this section. Let’s start with his parents; their names were Rick Riordan Sr. and Lyn Belisle. Both of them were teachers. Rick Riordan’s wife is Becky Riordan whom he married at the age of 24 and her birthdate too is on 5^th June. They have two sons Haley who is a student novelist and Patrick Riordan. 

Becky Riordan

 

Inspirations

This section is all about where Rick Riordan got his ideas of Percy Jackson from. His son Haley Riordan got dyslexia that means he couldn’t read or write properly. When Haley was in second grade he had a very bad time in school, so Rick Riordan used to tell him a lot about Greek mythology and in order to keep Haley happy he made new stories of a boy with dyslexia ADHD who discovered he was a son of the god, Poseidon that means he was a demigod [half god half human] and like I mentioned before he got the idea of camp half-blood, the place where demigods can find safety; from Camp Capers where he was music director.

                                                My thoughts

I think Rick Riordan is a terrific author. His books have humour, cliff-hangers and mystery, just the kind of traits I like in a book. Some other fans have the same opinion although they like J.K Rowling, the author of harry potter better. I cannot compare between these two authors as their books are equally good.

                 

              Rick Riordan Jr. is possibly a great inspiration to many parents as well as children. He went great lengths to help his son enjoy life at home as much as he can to cover up for the bad school days and because of this stressing moment he became a world famous author. I enjoyed writing about this topic and I hope you liked reading about his childhood, careers, family, books and inspirations too and so I come to the end of my feature article. If you want to read more about Rick Riordan visit http://rickriordan.com/about/

Acknowledgements

·       http://rickriordan.com/about/

·       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Riordan

·       rickriordaninfo.weebly.com/childhood.html

·       www.rickriordan.co.uk/

·       http://riordan.wikia.com/wiki/Haley_Riordan

·       riordan.wikia.com/wiki/Rick_Riordan