Rick Riordan

Maysen loves mythology. She loved the Lightning Thief series. The Last Olympian was just released a few weeks ago. Rick Riordan stopped in Decatur on a book signing tour. I was so excited to find out about it, it wasn't very well publicized. (It was actually very nice because it wasn't as crowded as some of his stops on this tour have been.) Maysen, her friend Jakob, his mom Tito, my friend Rae, and her two boys Ephraim and Noah (who are also Maysen's friends) all drove down to the book signing together. Tito and I even checked the kids out of school 1 hour and 15 minutes early. Big deal for me.

Anyway, we arrived at the book signing about 30 minutes before the doors opened. We were about number 12 in line.

Rick Riordan giving a short presentation.
Riordan

The book signing went very smoothly. Everyone was given a ticket. Ours was 57. (We had gotten our ticket weeks ago.) You were allowed to get up to five books signed, with one book personalized. While we were waiting, someone put a sticky note on the personalized book with the spelling of Maysen's name. He hardly looked at the book, he was concentrating on the children. I thought that was really nice.
Maysen asked him if he knew he won the Georgia Book Award. He said, "Is that true? That's good news. That's really good news." How awesome that Maysen got to break that news to him!

We were able to listen to Rick Riordan explain how he came up with the idea for The Lightning Thief. He said his boy was ADHD and had dyslexia. The only thing that interested him was mythology. When he ran out of myths to tell him, his son asked him to make up some. That is how Percy Jackson came to be. His son talked him into writing it down and trying to get it published. How great is that!

Riordan also hinted that his next book would be about what happens at Camp Half Blood while Percy is on his adventures. That should be a great read.

I had a great time with Maysen, her friends and my friends. Just a wonderful, wonderful day.