Percy Jackson and Greek Mythology
Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a five-book series about a modern-day kid who finds out his father is Poseidon, god of the sea. Percy's full name really is Perseus, after the Greek hero who beat Medusa. In the books, his mom chose it because Perseus was one of the few Greek heroes whose story had a happy ending.
Almost every chapter borrows something from the old myths, so the books are a great doorway into the real stories. This page goes book by book and points to the myths behind them. We don't have Percy Jackson coloring pages, but we do have plenty of the gods, heroes and monsters he meets.
Jump to: Percy Jackson and the Olympians | Heroes of Olympus | Trials of Apollo | Magnus Chase and Kane Chronicles
A note for parents and teachers: The books follow the myths closely in some places and change them a lot in others. The notes below describe the original myths, so they're a fun way to compare the two.
Tap any image to open the full-size printable, then download or print it.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
The Lightning Thief
Percy is accused of stealing Zeus' master lightning bolt and sets off across the country to find it. Along the way he runs into:
- The Minotaur: In the myth, the bull-headed monster lived in the Labyrinth of Crete until Theseus defeated it.
- Medusa: The Gorgon whose face turned people to stone. In the myth, Perseus beat her by looking only at her reflection in his shield.
- The Chimera: A fire-breathing monster that's part lion, part goat and part serpent. In the myth, it was beaten by the hero Bellerophon riding Pegasus.
- Procrustes: A robber who made his guests fit his bed, one way or another. Theseus stopped him on the road to Athens.
- The Lotus-Eaters: In the Odyssey, anyone who ate the lotus forgot all about going home.
- Hades and the Underworld, guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus.
The Sea of Monsters
Percy and his friends sail into the Sea of Monsters in search of the Golden Fleece. This book borrows heavily from the Odyssey:
- Polyphemus the Cyclops: In the myth, Odysseus escaped his cave by hiding his men under the sheep.
- Circe: The sorceress who turned Odysseus' men into pigs.
- The Sirens: Their song lured sailors onto the rocks, so Odysseus had himself tied to the mast.
- Scylla and Charybdis: A six-headed monster on one side of a narrow strait and a giant whirlpool on the other.
- The Golden Fleece: In the myth, Jason and the Argonauts sailed to the edge of the world to win it.
- The Hydra: The many-headed serpent that Herakles fought, where two heads grew back for every one cut off.
The Titan's Curse
When the goddess Artemis goes missing, Percy heads west to find her. This book draws on the Titans and the labors of Herakles:
- Atlas: The Titan doomed to hold up the sky. In the myth, Herakles took the weight for him once, and Perseus turned him into a mountain.
- The Garden of the Hesperides: The maidens who guard the tree of golden apples with the help of a dragon.
- The Nemean Lion: The lion whose golden hide no weapon could pierce, until Herakles wrestled it.
- Artemis and her twin brother Apollo, the god whose sun chariot crossed the sky each day.
Titan coloring pages Herakles coloring pages
The Battle of the Labyrinth
Percy and his friends go underground into the Labyrinth itself, which has grown and spread far beyond Crete. Inside, they find:
- Daedalus: The inventor who built the Labyrinth for King Minos, and the wings that he and his son Icarus used to escape.
- The Sphinx: The riddle-asking monster with a lion's body and wings, who guarded the road to Thebes.
- Geryon's ranch: In the myth, Herakles had to steal the red cattle of Geryon, a giant with three bodies.
- Calypso: The goddess who kept Odysseus on her island, Ogygia, for seven years.
- Hephaestus: The god of the forge, who builds amazing machines.
- Pan: The goat-footed god of the wild.
The Last Olympian
The Titan Kronos makes his final attack on Mount Olympus, and the whole series comes together. This book draws on:
- Kronos and the Titans: In the myth, Kronos ruled the world until his son Zeus overthrew him.
Read the story of Kronos, Gaia and Zeus. - Typhon: The most terrifying monster in Greek myth, who once sent the gods running.
- Achilles and the River Styx: His mother dipped him in the river to make him invulnerable, everywhere except his heel. Read more on our Iliad page.
- Prometheus and Pandora's jar: In the myth, Pandora opened the jar and let all the troubles out into the world, and only hope stayed inside.
- Hestia: The quiet goddess of the hearth, who turns out to matter a great deal.
Camp Half-Blood
Percy spends his summers at Camp Half-Blood, a training camp for the children of the gods. Two of the grown-ups there come straight from mythology:
- Chiron: The wise centaur who trains the campers. In the myth, he was the teacher of heroes like Achilles.
- Dionysus: The camp director, who would much rather be somewhere else. In the myth, he's the god of wine, festivals and theater.
The campers are sorted into cabins by their godly parent, so nearly every Olympian has a part to play, from Athena and Ares to Hermes and Aphrodite.
The Heroes of Olympus
Percy's second series adds new heroes and a whole new camp: Camp Jupiter, where the demigods are Roman. The Romans borrowed the Greek gods and gave them new names and a more soldierly attitude, so Zeus becomes Jupiter and Poseidon becomes Neptune. The villain this time is Gaia, the Earth herself, who wakes the Giants to tear Olympus down. There are five books, and the myths come thick and fast.
The Lost Hero
A boy with no memory, a girl who can talk anyone into anything and a boy who can fix anything land at Camp Half-Blood, while the goddess Hera goes missing. Along the way they meet:
- Hera: The queen of the gods, locked up in the book. In the myth, her son Hephaestus once trapped her in a golden throne that she couldn't get out of.
- Medea: The sorceress who helped Jason win the Golden Fleece, and not always for good reasons.
- Aeolus: The king of the winds, who gave Odysseus a bag of storms in the Odyssey.
- Boreas: The North Wind, one of the four wind gods.
- Lupa the she-wolf: In Roman legend, a wolf raised the twins Romulus and Remus, who went on to found Rome.
The Son of Neptune
Percy wakes up with no memory of his own and finds his way to Camp Jupiter, where he teams up with Hazel and Frank. Their quest leads to Alaska, and to some very old monsters:
- Phineus and the harpies: A blind king who was tormented by winged monsters that snatched his food. In the myth, the sons of Boreas chased them away.
- Alcyoneus: A giant who couldn't die on his home ground. In the myth, Herakles beat him by dragging him somewhere else.
- The Amazons: The warrior women of Greek myth, who also trouble Herakles on one of his labors.
- Pluto: The dignified Roman god of the dead and of the riches buried underground.
The Mark of Athena
The heroes build a flying warship and set out for Greece, with Annabeth chasing a clue left by her mother. This one is all about Athena:
- The Athena Parthenos: A real statue of Athena made of gold and ivory that stood inside the Parthenon in Athens. It was about twelve metres tall, as high as a four-storey building.
- The Argo: The ship in the book is the Argo II, named after the ship Jason and the Argonauts sailed in search of the Golden Fleece.
- Arachne: The weaver who boasted that she was better than Athena, and ended up as a spider.
- Tartarus: The deepest pit of the Underworld, where the gods locked away their worst enemies.
The House of Hades
Percy and Annabeth have to cross Tartarus to reach the Doors of Death, while their friends race to meet them on the other side. The book goes deep into the Greek Underworld:
- Tartarus: In the myth, it was as far below Hades as the earth is below the sky.
- Nyx: The goddess of night, who was so powerful that even Zeus kept clear of her.
- Iapetus: A Titan and the father of Atlas and Prometheus.
- Cerberus: The three-headed dog who guards the way into the house of Hades.
The Blood of Olympus
The last book of the series is a race to stop Gaia before she fully wakes. The final battle comes from one of the oldest stories in Greek myth:
- The Giants: In the myth, the gods fought the Giants in a great war, and a prophecy said they could only win with the help of a mortal hero. They chose Herakles.
- Porphyrion: The king of the Giants, who attacked Hera and was defeated by Zeus and Herakles together.
- Hecate: The goddess of magic and crossroads, who carried torches and was often shown with her dogs.
- Gaia: The Earth, mother of the Titans and the Giants.
Roman mythology coloring pages Titan coloring pages
The Trials of Apollo
Zeus is furious with Apollo, so he turns the god of music and the sun into a clumsy sixteen-year-old mortal named Lester Papadopoulos. Yes, Lester! To get back to Olympus, Apollo has to win back his old powers one trial at a time. The myth is closer than you'd think:
- Apollo: The god of the sun, music, healing and archery. In the myth, Zeus really did make him work for a mortal king as a shepherd for a year.
- The Oracle of Delphi: The priestess who gave out prophecies, in a temple Apollo won by defeating the serpent Python. Visit the Oracle of Delphi.
- Artemis: Apollo's twin sister, goddess of the hunt and the moon.
- Helios: The Titan who drove the sun across the sky each day, before storytellers started giving the job to Apollo.
Norse and Egyptian Series
If you like the way Riordan mixes myths with modern kids, he's done it twice more. Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard follows a homeless teenager who turns out to be the son of a Norse god, so keep an eye out for Thor, Loki and the giants on our Norse mythology page. The Kane Chronicles sends a brother and sister off to wake up the old gods of Egypt, who you can meet on our Egyptian gods page.
Norse mythology coloring pages Egyptian gods coloring pages
More Books and Shows
The first two books were made into movies in 2010 and 2013, and a Disney+ series that follows the books more closely began in 2023.
Greek mythology coloring pages The real Perseus