#Indian mythology books by rick riordan series#

He has not created something that tells of a “real” experience, because the setting is fantasy, and the mythology is simply a touchstone. That differs, in essence, from what Riordan has accomplished by the heavy inclusion of minority characters in his narrative. All these novels are important, but they are treated, in a way, as sacrosanct representations of minority fiction, to be read by children for the sake of reading minority fiction. The same could be said of novels like The House on Mango Street (Latino) or The Watsons go to Birmingham, 1963 (African-American). But what they don’t do is tell a story whose primary purpose is not to highlight American Indian issues. They are both rooted in truth and are both rooted in real-world occurrences, and are absolutely important to both children’s literature and to American Indian fiction. Both of these books are, undoubtedly, written from the point of view of American Indian characters, highlight American Indian issues, and are important for the creation of American Indian narratives in children and young adult fiction. Well, consider most books which predominantly feature an American Indian character: a book like Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. It also highlights the inherent problem that children and young adult novels suffer from in bulk today, which is a fundamental lack of representation that occurs simply through the act of having a character in the book, and impacts the novel only in the sense that these characters have an ethnicity and cultural context that highlights both their personality and their character development. But the inclusion of characters who are American Indian, Latino, Asian and African-American is not simply a way to demonstrate that America is a mixed bag. My point is that Rome was far more mixed than is generally considered in the minds of most Americans, just like I feel that America is far more mixed than most Americans seem to understand. This may seem like an odd place to start this conversation, but bear with me. However, anyone who has studied Greece will know that the racial profile of ancient Greece was more complex than simply “white” and Rome even moreso complicated by the constant influx of trade, immigration, and conquest that took place in what is simplistically called the Classical period. It’s interesting that he manages inclusion so seamlessly, despite the fact that in Heroes of Olympus, the mythological pantheon is Greek and Roman, and therefore in the minds of many Westerners, white in origin. So when someone pointed out to me last week that I mention that Rick Riordan has his female characters occasionally need rescuing, but that I didn’t mention how often they also assist with rescue and how inclusive he is with his characters, having a wide spread of characters who are persons of color (not-white), I decided to address this currently, Rick Riordan is leading the way in middle-school level fiction the way that Lemony Snicket did in the 00s with his Heroes of Olympus series, and his inclusion of non-white characters is something that should be lauded. This perhaps comes from the fact that modern children’s literature is often rooted in British traditions, but even American equivalents, like The Wizard of Oz, suffer from these same repetitive characters, despite a wide plethora of children’s books that cater to minority children.

#Indian mythology books by rick riordan series#

If we look at popular trends in children’s fantasy, they often follow a very British tradition white, middle-class schoolchildren are often the main characters – for instance, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, A Series of Unfortunate Events, the list does go on and on without me having to list all the instances. There is a problem in children’s fantasy books, and the problem is an overabundance of white children.