Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Books Before Movies (I heart Percy Jackson)

I want to know why no one told me about the Percy Jackson books before now. Oh wait. They did. I’m just slow on the uptake sometimes. My daughter is a big Percy Jackson fan. She has talked about the books so much at the dinner table that my son and I were both convinced we must read the books or die. Well almost. Earlier this week, I went to my local bookstore and bought a box set of the first three Percy Jackson books. It’s finally my turn to read book one, The Lightning Thief. (My son is a fast reader.) After reading chapter one of book one, one word: Wow! It was possibly the best first chapter I have ever read. Amazing. I’m a few chapters in now and I want more.

I’m glad that Percy Jackson & The Olympians is coming to a theatre near us on President’s Day. I might not have been compelled to read the book now if the movie release were not a few weeks away. As I’ve mentioned before in a previous blog post, I’m a books-before-movies reader. I also read the first Harry Potter book before seeing the first movie. I was hooked.

Are you a books-before-movies reader? Have you ever heard other people talking nonstop about a book, thought they must be exaggerating, finally gave in to read the book and got hooked yourself?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like to read books first too. Like Harry Potter series I think would have been ruined if I had seen the movies first. But I tried to read Twilight and couldn't get into it but I watched the movie anyway...I actually thought it was better as a movie. Never thought I'd say that :-)

Shauna Roberts said...

I generally prefer to read the books first, even though that means I end up grumbling after the movie that "it wasn't as good as the book!"

Heather Ivester said...

My kids love these books too, and I confess I hadn't heard of Percy Jackson until I got invited to see "The Lightning Thief" with a big group from my kids' school.

Needless to say, WOW! We had to see it twice, and then we had to buy all the books. They were sold out of the boxed sets at our local Borders, so we had to order them!

It's very exciting to see movies for kids made from great books! We're now eagerly awaiting the upcoming Beezus and Ramona movie!