Percy Jackson, home from another adventurous summer at Camp Half-Blood, can’t even make it through freshman orientation at his new high school before a new round of Grecian drama begins. The culmination of Kronos’s power is nigh unless Percy and his Olympian comrades can thwart his efforts to fully form and defeat the gods of Mount Olympus, starting with an attack on Camp Half-Blood, Percy’s home away from home. Embarking on an unplanned quest through an underground labyrinth (growing like an uncontrolled weed from Daedalus’s original wonder), Annabeth leads Percy, Tyson, and Grover down a path marked with deadly twists and turns. At critical intersections, the group faces challenging tests of courage and intelligence. Following the unmistakable and successful style of the previous books in the series, Rick Riordan deftly introduces new characters and interesting concepts from Greek myths while also keeping pace with the overall development of the teen characters and series focus. With its humorous dialogue, inconceivable situations (e.g., The Game Show of Death), and relationship crescendos, The Battle of the Labyrinth is a maze worth getting lost in. (Ages 10–14)