History Nerd

Little-known fact about me; in college, I minored in history. The bulk of this coursework was done during my study abroad semester in Athens, Greece.  I liked history before my time in Athens, but a semester spent surrounded by the remnants of ancient history was enough to make me a full-fledged history nerd.  Here are some pictures from the Temple of Poseidon, located in Sunion, just a short trip outside Athens.  *Bonus points if you can guess what book series this is leading into.*

  Amazing, right? Like I said it's enough to turn you into hard core history nerd.





Readers of this blog will know that I am a big fan of fantasy.  If I'm looking for a book to read just for fun, nine times out of 10 that book will be fantasy.  So what do you get when you make a  YA book, that's fantasy, and mixes in a significant chunk of history-even better Greek history?  Well for one you get a book that I'm definitely going to love, but you also get Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson Series.
This series revolves around a group of demi-gods (half human, half god), all of whom have a parent who is one of the gods of Olympus.  The main character, Percy Jackson, works with other demi-gods and a variety of mythical creatures to battle monsters and help wage the battles of Olympus. Oh, and they go to summer camp.  But Camp Half-Blood is like no other summer camp you've ever seen.

The Lightning Thief
The Sea of Monsters
The Titan's Curse
The Battle of the Labyrinth
The Last Olympian 

These books meet all of my criteria, fantasy, history, adventure, it's a series, some (but not all) of the series have been made into movies.  And best of all Rick Riordan has written a ton of other books! The Kane Chronicles follows the same concept, but is based on Egyptian gods. Heroes of Olympus is set in the same world as Percy Jackson, but introduces the Roman form of the gods, with character overlap weaving in and out-much like the Greek and Roman gods interacted in history.

If you're looking for a great world to get lost in, especially as winter is coming with snow days sure to follow, this would be an excellent choice.  

Being a history nerd.....that's kids stuff.