"Grover, did you eat my shoes again?"

"Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan

About a ADHD and dyslexic 12-year old boy who found out that he is a demi-god, fathered by one of the Big Three Olympic Gods. It makes an interesting read to see how all the Greek gods and (supposedly mythological) personalities are still with us in this century. Other interesting nuggets of information:

(a) The cause of the past two world wars? - Ask the children of the gods. They were the ones who started the wars.

(b) Where is Olympus? - On the 600th floor of the Empire State Building in New York. Ask the porter at the counter for the elevator key.

(c) Is the underworld over-populated? - Ask Chiron in his Italian suits. He has been asking Hades for a pay raise.

Needless to say, Dash's favourite character is Grover Underwood, the satyr (half man and half goat). A tin-can eater who is an enviromentalist, his dream is to find Pan to restore the beauty of the woods.

An excerpt from the pages of the chapter "We get advice from a Poodle":

[Grover] nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Percy."

"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"

"No. This makes me sad." He pointed to all the garbage on the grund. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist."

He glared at me. "Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast ... ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan."

[Snapshot of a floor mat at a school in KitaKyushu, Japan Dec 05]