Summer Camp

Rick Riordan blogs about a real Camp Half-Blood which was offered by bookstore-extraordinaire, BookPeople, in Austin, Texas.

Publishers Weekly has even more details about the camp.
It sounds like BookPeople employee, Topher Bradfield, has enjoyed the same reaction to his read-alouds as I have.

The inspiration for the camp came from BookPeople’s Topher Bradfield, who in his job as the store’s outreach coordinator, visits Austin-area elementary schools. Often of late, he says, he found himself reading from the first chapter of The Lightning Thief. “It was a great way to get the boys to pay attention,” he explained.

How wonderful...

A total of 55 campers are participating in the camp. Some have traveled such far-flung areas as New York, Colorado, Arizona, Iowa and Greece to take part. Word spread through Riordan’s Web site, and BookPeople answered queries from as far away as Japan and the U.K.

The city of Austin lent use of Zilker Park’s rock garden, a part of Austin’s public park’s system, as the location for the camp. Activities start at 8 a.m. and involve a daily quest for pieces of the Apple of Discord, lessons on Greek mythology and philosophy from University of Texas and Austin Community College graduate students, swimming, kickball and Frisbee golf. A Greek war re-enactor has been flown in from California to teach Greek battle formations, such as the phalanx.

I just finished reading Sea of Monsters. Terrific.
I'm telling you, Riordan is a rock star!