If you’ve read my blog at all, you know that I am not against magic in fiction.  In fact, some of my favorite books are fantasy books that rely heavily on the premise that I suspend my disbelief in magic.  These stories can be very powerful and can reveal a lot about what attracts us, motivates, and ultimately redeems us as human beings.

That said, I also believe that witchcraft is a real-world concept that is still practiced today.  While I am by no means an expert in the occult or in Pagan practices, I’m always a little wary when my fiction adopts certain characteristics that I associate with witchcraft.

Through reading and experience, I’ve come to define witchcraft as the desire for and pursuit of control over our environment and others.  It’s often presented as a reaction against centuries of female oppression–the only way for women to assert their independence and gain the upper hand.  While I am all for the feminist movement, I’m not one of those who thinks that in order to right the scales of justice, they must be tipped the other way.

That said, Bray’s novel treads dangerously close to that line.  I like that the novel deals with behavioral and societal norms for women in the Victorian era.  I like that the girls are seeking out ways to assert their independence.  I even like the concept of being able to open magical doors into other realms.  Where this all gets foggy is in the description of how women used this power in the past.

Now, the story falls far short of being a how-to book on witchcraft, so personally, I wouldn’t blink twice at recommending it for kids.  However, I do think that there are just a few too many references for my personal taste, and I think it may very well offend some of my more “fantastically” conservative friends.

I do need to mention the one redeeming virtue of the book, which I had to hold out until the bitter end to find.  When Gemma finally succeeds in her quest, it is the power of forgiveness that defeats the enemy.  There is just something so exquisitely beautiful about that…that forgiveness is a more powerful magic than anything evil will try to throw at us.

It almost made me want to read the rest of the series.  Unfortunately, I’m just a little too worried about what Gemma will cook up next, and my reading list is so very long, that I’ll most likely skip this series in favor of discovering another gem.

The basic premise of these books is that the Greek gods and goddesses are actually real and have simply moved to America to follow the hub of Western Civilization. Of course, the hero of our story (both in a literal and literary sense) does not know all this at the beginning of the first book. All he knows is that trouble seems to follow him wherever he goes, and he’s been to a lot of places trying to get away from it: six different school in six years, in fact. It isn’t until his math teacher turns into a flying monster during a field trip, though, that Percy begins to realize that maybe the kind of trouble following him isn’t just because he is dyslexic, has ADHD, and tends to attract bullies. He soon discovers that his best friend is a satyr, his Latin teacher is a centaur, and that he himself is only half human.

While Percy struggles to come to terms with the fact that his father is one of the Olympian gods, he is thrown into the middle of a brewing war between Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Everything depends on Percy’s successful completion of his quest to find and return Zeus’s stolen thunderbolt.

In the second book, Camp Half-Blood (the summer camp where Percy trains to be a hero) is under attack and Percy’s friend Grover, the satyr, is being held captive by a cyclops. Percy must face a friend who has become an enemy and learn to work with an enemy who…well, hasn’t quite become a friend, but is at least an ally, for now, in order to save both Grover and the camp.

If you are knowledgeable in Greek mythology, you will recognize quite a few allusions to those stories, especially in the second book where references to The Odyssey abound. However, you don’t have to be up on all the gods and heroes to enjoy these books. Everything that is essential to understand is explained, since Percy himself is not familiar with many of the stories.

I also appreciate that Riordan throws in a bit of an environmental bent. He doesn’t make it overbearing, but there are references, where appropriate, that although Western civilization has its benefits, we have really polluted the natural environment to the point where many of the good creatures of mythology can no longer thrive, but the evil monsters do.

The other themes that I find incredibly valuable in this series are how to deal with bullies and how to overcome your own weaknesses. Percy constantly faces the teasing (both physical and verbal) of bullies, and while he doesn’t always deal with them in the best way, he also realizes that their differences can be overcome in times of need. He also must overcome personal obstacles, such as his dyslexia and ADHD. At Camp Half-Blood, he learns that his disabilities can sometimes be an advantage, such as the ADHD helping him in battle, keeping his senses alert and shifting as the battle shifts.