The Red Pyramid
By Rick Riordan
Hi! Have you lost anyone important to you? Well, Carter has! Carter’s mom died in an accident, and he and his sister, Sadie, were split up. Sadie went to live with her grandparents in England, and Carter continued to travel the world with his dad.
It’s been a long time since Carter’s mom died, and he longs for a normal life. He feels like he never has a home; he feels more like a homeless person than a person who gets to travel. All of this changes, however, when he and his dad go visit Sadie.
Carter goes to see Sadie twice a year. You might think that’s a long time for siblings to be split up, but Carter doesn’t really care. Sadie’s more like a half-cousin twice-removed to him – not like a sister. Carter and Sadie don’t even look alike! Carter looks like his dad - he has brown skin and brown hair. Sadie looks like her mom – she has pale skin and blonde hair.
That day, Carter’s dad takes Sadie and Carter to an Egyptian museum. Carter’s dad tells the kids to wait inside for him, but Sadie’s a rule-breaker. She goes to eavesdrop and Carter follows her. They don’t hear much, but what they do hear is confusing. There’s a man named Amos outside who is trying to tell their dad not to do “it.” Not to do what?
When they get inside the museum, they meet an assistant. The assistant goes and talks to their dad, and he heads back to his office to get some paperwork. Dad tells Sadie and Carter to go and lock the assistant up in his room. By this point, Carter’s very suspicious. He didn’t want to lock him up, but he did what his dad said. Then, Dad told Carter and Sadie to go to a different room and get out of there. However, they stayed! They wanted to see what he was doing.
Their dad was muttering something, and holding an ancient Egyptian relic. Suddenly, the relic shattered! Their dad was entombed in a golden sarcophagus. (That’s an Egyptian casket, in case you didn’t know.) An evil god named Set had kidnapped their father. Set is the god of chaos.
Then, the authorities came. They locked Sadie and Carter in a room where they had locked up the assistant until further notice. Sadie and Carter went back to their grandparents’ house. However, the man named Amos comes in, explains that he’s their uncle, and somehow convinces the authorities to let them go with a strange man that they’d never seen before instead the relatives, who could be proven to be relatives!
At Amos’ house, he explains everything. Carter and Sadie are descended from a very long line of ancient Egyptian pharaohs. (A pharaoh is an Egyptian king.) He also explains that they have magic in their blood, and they are each hosting a god. Egyptian gods cannot just appear. They have to go inside a mortal body. (As creepy as this might seem, it actually makes the wizard very powerful, and you can control the god if you have enough will.)
Carter has Horus inside him, and Sadie has Isis inside her. These are two of the most powerful gods and goddesses. They will have to discover the right tools needed to defeat Set, journey to Phoenix, Arizona, save their father, and save the world at the same time. All in very little time!
Will Carter and Sadie complete their quest? Or will they perish and Set destroy life as they know it? As I always say, read the book to find out!
A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:
“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor – zero being not scary at all and five being majorly scary): 4
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor – zero having no yucky-lovey parts in it and five having major yucky-lovey parts): 2
I give this book 5 wands.
This book was amazing! It has a strange twist at the end that I can’t mention, because that would ruin the book for you. But I can guarantee you that this book will have you on the edge of your seat! (This is the first book in the “Kane” series. After you’re finished reading this book, check out the rest!)
