Young Adult Literature

I won't claim to be an expert in literature for young adults or teens or tweens or whatever we're calling them now. It's over ten years since Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published and I was on that from the beginning. Courtesy of my mom, I got that book at Christmas time, slightly before the series exploded into popular culture. As usual, Debbie Grady knows what's going to the next big thing before everyone else. Well, that series was and is wonderful. It's true that the magic and Latin/Greek allusions captured me so I read all the books as they came out, even as I aged beyond the "recommended reading age". I know many others who did the same. I won't go into move reviews here because I'd rather focus on the books and I don't want to get into the over-exposure that has turned the HP series into something out of control (in my mind).
Well, this past weekend, I caught up with my Aunt Jeri who is a high school English teacher. Having taught various grades for the past 20 years and having five kids of her own, she knows a thing or two about books, especially books for young adults. She immediately told me about Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It only took the tiniest blurb ("it's about these modern day kids who are the children of the Olympian gods") for me to know I had to read these books. I'm not even close to being ahead of the trend on this one; the last book has been published and the first movie is slated to be released next year. The kids have been raving about this series for some time but when would someone like me, someone with very little connection to coolest new things at elementary or middle schools, find out about these gems? Fortunately, I have people like Jeri to fill me in. I went out today and found the first book at the Education Library at UBC (education libraries have all the fun books). Granted, the reading level isn't very challenging but I know I'll finish the book today. It's just fun, and smart. For people who don't know much about mythology, it's still easy to read but it's vastly more rewarding if you do know the backgrounds of all the people and places mentioned. It's testing my knowledge too. For someone who knows a great deal about mythology, it can be a bit easy to guess what's going to happen next or figure out a character before they've been revealed in the plot. Fortunately, it doesn't take the fun out of it. So while I may have to analyze and dissect the meaning and values of myth during my day job as a grad student, you can bet I'm reading the young adult versions at home.