Harry Potter wannabe?

Sometimes when something is extremely popular (and there is no denying that Harry Potter is VERY popular), other things come along that seem a bit similar. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Well, I recently finished reading 'The Lightning Thief' by Rick Riordan. I enjoyed it enormously - enough to buy the other books in the series. However, when I got to thinking about it, there are a LOT of parallels with the Harry Potter world.

The protaganist, Percy Jackson(Harry Potter?) finds out that he belongs to a special group of people that live unbeknownst to the rest of us. He is a demigod - or half-god, half-human (Harry Potter is a wizard). Even among this special class, he stands out as being a bit extra special. Sound familiar?

He has to go to a special school for demigods - Camp Halfblood (Hogwarts?), where there is a kindly mentor to help him out - Chiron (Dumbledore?) There is also a person in authority who doesn't like him at all - Dionysis (Snape?).

At this camp, people are divided into different houses, depending on their sire. Percy is in Poseidon's house (Gryffindor?), and his best friend is a bit of a doofus - Grover (Ron?). He gets most of his help from an extremely intelligent girl - Annabeth (Hermione?) who knows everything about everything.

Through no fault of his own, poor Percy is thrown headlong into adventure after adventure, just because of who he is, and the main evil guy - Kronos (Voldemort?) is out to get HIM. But Kronos has been defeated before, and is trying to make a comeback using other people - like Luke (Professor Quimbly?)

Well, enough said. Please don't get the wrong impression - I have always loved Greek mythology, and I really enjoy how it is integrated into the 'Percy & the Olympians' series. But the next time you read one of these books, just see if my observations have some merit.