Percy Jackson and the Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan was a life changing book as a young eight-year-old with dyslexia.

When I was eight years old my grandmother bought me the first Percy Jackson book to read on a flight from Tasmania to Melbourne. At that time, I and just been diagnosed with dyslexia and was very worried about what that meant, and how my life might change. I had also just moved schools and was struggling to fit in. My grandmother saw a book about a young boy with dyslexia and decided I needed to read it.

At that point in my life I wasn’t a reader, I hated reading, I would throw books across the room and sit alone during library time at school. My grandmother hoped that with this book she would show me that reading was fun. She was right. I started reading in the airport, then I sat on the plane and continued reading for the entirety of the flight, I in Melbourne and put the book down, assuming that I wouldn’t read it anymore. But I was wrong. I ended up reading hours past my bedtime.

It had all the things I wanted to read about in it
• A magical summer camp - check
• A badass female MC - check
• A cute friendship - check
• A story about how dyslexia is a superpower - check.

Percy Jackson and the Lighting Thief completely changed my perspective about dyslexia. It made me realise that maybe this new diagnosis wasn’t so bad. Despite struggling with spelling and writing, I was very creative and good a problem solving. In the book Percy has moved to six schools in six years, that made me feel a lot better about the fact that I had to move schools.

The Percy Jackson books are broken up into many different series. Start with Percy Jackson, then read Heroes of Olympus, then Trials of Apollo, where you go from there is up to you. Riordan writes about Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Norse mythology. this was exactly what I need. I think that every kid should read this book. Especially if they have a learning disability because it is easy to find characters to relate too. 7 years after I had first picked up Percy Jackson, I'm still waiting to hear the release date of the newest book.