Our baboon was going completely sky goddess - which is to say, nuts.

Kids, if anything, are harder to write for because they are a more discerning audience. They will not stay with you if you go off on a tangent or if you give them extraneous information that doesn't serve the story. You really have to tell a tight story. You have to give them humor and suspense and believable characters. All those things that adults want too, but you have to be really on your game when you're writing for kids.

"Percy, you're a brave guy," She said. "Just take the compliment. I swear, is it so hard?"

Listen, Frank Zhang has moves. He's probably gonna turn into a kangaroo and do some marsupial jujitsu on their ugly faces.

Leo: I'm almost out of gas! Woah, that came out wrong. I meant the burning kind!

But magic is neither good nor evil. It is a tool, like a knife. Is a knife evil? Only if the wielder is evil.

You both passed out,” Percy said. “I don’t know why, but Ella told me not to worry about it. She said you were…sharing?” “Sharing,” Ella agreed. She crouched in the stern, preening her wing feathers with her teeth, which didn’t look like a very effective form of personal hygiene. She spit out some red fluff. “Sharing is good. No more blackouts. Biggest American blackout, August 14, 2003. Hazel shared. No more blackouts.” Percy scratched his head. “Yeah…we’ve been having conversations like that all night. I still don’t know what she’s talking about.