June cackled with delight, muttering, "Whoops!" as a car almost killed them.

We only came close to dying six or seven times, which I thought was pretty good. Once, I lost my grip and found myself dangling by one hand from a ledge fifty feet above the rocky surf. But I found another handhold and kept climbing. A minute later Annabeth hit a slippery patch of moss and her foot slipped. Fortunately, she found something else to put it against. Unfortunately, that something was my face. "Sorry," she murrmured. "S'okay," I grunted, though I'd never really wanted to know what Annabeth's sneaker tasted like.

To all my librarian friends, champions of books, true magicians in the House of Life. Without you, this writer would be lost in the Dust.

I still don't understand what a sea god would be doing in Atlanta." Leo snorted. "What's a wine god doing in Kansas? Gods are weird.

"Bloated!" he cried. The corresponding hieroglyph flew through the air, bursting against a demon's chest in a spray of light. Instantly, the demon swelled like a water balloon and rolled screaming down the pyramid. "Flat!" Thoth blasted another demon, who collapsed and shriveled into a monster-shaped doormat. "Intestinal problems!" Thoth yelled. The poor demon who got zapped with that one turned green and doubled over.

I'll show them 'love is worthless,'" Silena Beauregard grumbled as she strapped on her armor. "I'll pulverize them!

I think the more you understand myths, the more you understand the roots of our culture and the more things will resonate. Do you have to know them? No, but certainly it is nice to recognise how deeply these things are embedded in our literature, our art.