Why, one might wonder, should we be interested in this book seires written in the 2000s for middle-schoolers? What value does discussing and analysing this work have? I am not going to offer a lengthy defense for the analysis and critisim of works intedned for younger audiences — those discussions are beyond the remit of this article. However, to quote Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail, "When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does." As we grow up, the works we engage us furnish us with an understanding of how we can interact with the world, and they offer us option with which to overcome the problems we encounter in it.
For a while, I have felt that the Percy Jackson series posesses certain qualities that are worth studying in comparison to the Harry Potter series — a series that has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years due to the author's vitriolic and harmful behaviour. The two series share a number of features — from their target audience to a being a "chosen one" story based in some form of magical education location hidden from the rest of the normal, non-magical world — so it is easy to understand why comparisons have, and will continue to be drawn. For the purpose of this article, I will engage directly with this comparative discussion of these two properties, focusing largely on the content of the books released as a part of their respective series. While I will refer at times to other materials — either published or posted, I will largely keep the scope of this discussion to the original books.