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: The Lightning Thief | The Sea of Monsters | The Titan's Curse | The Battle of the Labyrinth | The Last Olympian | Camp Half-Blood | More Books and Shows
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.
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.
More Books and Shows
Percy's story keeps going in The Heroes of Olympus, which brings in the Roman versions of the gods. That's where you'll meet Jupiter instead of Zeus and Neptune instead of Poseidon, and see how the Romans borrowed and renamed the Greek myths, just like Hercules. Riordan has written several more series since, including The Trials of Apollo.
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