#readforchange

We've hit 100 followers on this blog so that's exciting! Thanks to everyone who's getting involved and even more thanks to everyone who has donated to our justgiving page for Save the Children UK!

Save the Children do fantastic work helping kids in the UK and around the world receive the food, care, and education they need and their work is incredibly important, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic

£39 could provide 3000 antibiotic tablets to treat critically ill families with cholera in Sudan

£51 could provide a healthy baby kit containing vaccines for diarrhoea and pneumonia for families in Afghanistan

£85 could provide a severely malnourished child with medicine and vital food at an outpatient clinic for a month in Ethiopia

Percy Jackson, you say?

Well, I think we could all use a little ludicrous luck and faith in the absolute nonsensical, so I present: blue chocolate chip cookies!!

So I'm finally reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians book one as part of @readforchangeproject! I'm going to try and do a post with random thoughts for each chapter/day. Since everyone else read this book fifteen years ago, I'm worried about saying utterly dumb things and being embrassed, but oh well, I want to participate.

This event is in support of Save the Children UK, a charity helping to educate, feed, and provide medicine to children in the UK and around the world. You can donate via the Read for Change JustGiving page here.

As for those actual chapter one thoughts:

We're nearing the end of our reread of The Lightning Thief, I hope everyone has been enjoying revisiting the book and getting involved in the fun! And thank you so much to everyone who has donated to our justgiving page for Save the Children UK!

Save the Children do fantastic work helping kids in the UK and around the world receive the food, care, and education they need and their work is incredibly important, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic

£51 could provide a healthy baby kit containing vaccines for diarrhoea and pneumonia for families in Afghanistan

£66 could buy two week’s worth of ready to eat rations for a family of five in Syria

£85 could provide a severely malnourished child with medicine and vital food at an outpatient clinic for a month in Ethiopia

We've hit that first milestone of £51 which is awesome, but it would be amazing if we could make it up to £66 by the end of the reread!

There is obviously no pressure to donate but if you would like to contribute, please head to our justgiving page or share this post- if everyone who followed this blog donated £0.12 we’d raise enough for those food rations, and if everyone donated £0.30 we could hit our £85 target which would be fantastic

Buckle up kids it’s time to reread Percy Jackson

So this is the launch of a new community where we (re)read books together, share our thoughts and hold discussions, get creative, and try and put a bit of good out into the world as we go

After a public vote, we’ll be reading The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan in support of Save the Children

Rules and general info:

We’ll be reading one chapter a day. You are obviously allowed to read at whatever pace you want but I’ve set a slow pace so people with hectic lives can still get involved

The event will be from the 1st - 22nd April

On this blog, twitter, and instagram I’ll be posting my thoughts and a discussion question for each chapter so feel free to get involved!

You are encouraged to get involved however you want- be creative! Art, videos, your thoughts throughout reading the book, reading in a new language, writing scenes from other characters POVs, posting headcanons, tiktoks, baking blue food; there are loads of great ways to get involved! The more creative the better

Make sure to use the tag #readforchange so we can all join in on each other’s discussions and hopefully make some new friends!

I also thought it would be great to try and tie in the read along to trying to raise a bit of money for charity and you guys selected Save the Children as our first charity

Read here to learn more about Save the Children and what they do

Obviously I’m not expecting us to raise loads but every little helps!

As with the reading, how you want to get involved in fundraising is up to you. You could donate £1, you could use the sponsorship form to raise money from friends and family (especially if you’re doing something creative!), you could hold a bake sale with blue food, or you could help out by sharing the link to the just giving page

This is all meant to be fun, flexible, and low pressure so get involved as much or as little as you want and really make it your own. I can’t wait to see what you all get up to!

In The Lightning Thief, we're warned against using a monsters true name because "names have power". This is very similar to how the wizarding world treats Voldemort in the Harry Potter series.

However, in the Percy Jackson universe villains gain power from our heroes using their real names whereas in the Harry Potter universe, Voldemort gains power through people's refusal to use his name and the fear that generates

Thanks so much to everyone who has donated to our justgiving page for Save the Children UK! Save the Children do fantastic work helping kids in the UK and around the world receive the food, care, and education they need and their work is incredibly important, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic

£11 could provide a child in Yemen with a 'school in a bag' to make sure they don't miss out on their education

£15 could help provide a fresh food voucher for a new or expecting mother in Syria, giving her access to nutritious food for a month

£18 could pay for a back to school kit for a child in Indonesia