Fifteen-year-old Haley Riordan's life has been utterly changed thanks to the young son of a Greek god who loves nothing more than going on quests and fighting with fire-breathing monsters. Percy Jackson is the creation of Haley's father, Rick, a former teacher from Texas. His Percy Jackson adventures (there are five in all) are huge bestsellers (the latest book, The Last Olympian, had an initial print run of 1.2m) and attract hordes of fans who queue at book-signings wearing togas. Now Percy's profile is about to rise even higher thanks to a new film starring Uma Thurman and Pierce Brosnan.
But Percy is an unlikely superhero: he has never scored above a grade C in his life, and he thinks he's a loser, until page 88 of The Lightning Thief (the first in the series). For Percy has dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), just like Haley, on whom the character was based. At the start of his adventures, Percy discovers that his difficulties are not a weakness after all, but a sure sign of greatness: when he sees words jumbled on the page, it's because his mind is hard-wired for ancient Greek, and when the ADHD makes it hard to sit still in the classroom, it's just hyper-awareness that will keep him alive on the battlefield.
"Percy has changed my life," says Haley. "You read a lot of books and none of them have a hero who is dyslexic or has ADHD – it's always perfect people in a perfect world doing perfect things. Percy is, in fact, very flawed and he has to fight against that and at the same time fight monsters."
The character started out as a bed-time story for Haley, then nine. At the time Haley refused to read and hated school so much he would sit under the table and cry. But he was fascinated by Greek myths, and so his father would recount his favourite ones. When he ran out of stories, Haley said, "Why can't you just make one up?" And so Percy Jackson was born.
I meet Rick, 45, at his home in San Antonio, Texas, where he lives with his wife, Becky, 45, and their two sons, Haley and Patrick, 11. Rick cuts a neat figure in a clean-cut blue shirt and grey trousers. But this, like his simplified prose, is at odds with a deeper emotional drive. He gave up teaching five years ago, but still sees himself as an educator who wants to make a difference; a champion of the sidelined.
"I get an enormous number of emails and letters from families who have children who are ADHD or dyslexic. One of my favourites is a young girl who wrote to me and said she used to be ashamed that she had dyslexia, but now she has read the Percy Jackson books she wears that as a badge of honour. And that means the world to me. There are so many other children out there like my son who are struggling with these issues and feel there is something wrong with them, and there's not. It's simply a different way of processing information."
He says he isn't trying to preach to children, only seduce them into reading with humour, terror and excitement to keep them on the edge of their seats from page to page. "I have a great deal of sympathy for reluctant readers because I was one. I would do anything to avoid reading. In my case, it wasn't until I was 13 and discovered the Lord of the Rings that I learned to love reading."
But his books, even if they have no moral, do have a constant theme, which is the complexity of family life. Percy adores his mortal mother, Sally, who works in a sweet shop in Grand Central Station, hates his stepfather, Gabe, and is ambivalent about his father, Poseidon, aka Old Seaweed, who doesn't make himself known to Percy until he's 12 and only then because he wants something.
"We tend to think of divorced or complicated families as a modern invention, and that is not at all true," he says. "You only have to read the Greek myths to see broken homes, widows, divorce, stepchildren, children trying to get along with new parents."
His own family life is remarkably stable: the only child of two teachers, he grew up in San Antonio and met his wife, aged 15. "We were high-school sweethearts. We've grown up together and it's hard to get away with anything because she knows everything about me." After studying English and history at the University of Austin, Texas, Rick trained as a teacher, specialising in 11 to 14-year-olds. "Critical years when everything is in flux for the kids: emotionally, socially, academically, intellectually. I find it a very gratifying age group to work with because these are such formative years."
He started writing when he was 13, and published his first novel at 29, Big Red Tequila, about a private detective in San Antonio, and the first of what was to become the Tres Navarre mystery series for adults. Rick settled down to a routine of teaching and writing a book a year, but then gave up teaching in 2005 after selling the Percy Jackson series.
The books may be consistent best-sellers, but there is more than a passing similarity to another boy wizard, Harry Potter. Both attend boarding schools for children with special powers (Hogwarts; Camp Half-Blood); both use landmarks as magical gateways to secret worlds (King's Cross station; the Empire State Building); and both have faithful sidekicks (Ron and Hermione; Grover and Annabeth).
Is Percy Jackson similar to Harry Potter? "Yes, absolutely," he concedes, "but I don't think it's because Percy is modelled after Harry Potter. It's because they are both models of the same archetype. A lot of what JK Rowling does so well is draw from Greek mythology: the idea of magic being in the world; of great forces that are not seen; a young protagonist who is outcast but then finds out that he actually has a great destiny; he has great abilities but needs to go to a trainer to get them recognised; he has to realise his destiny by taking on a quest and accomplishing a great task – well, I've just described Harry Potter. I've also just described Hercules, Percy Jackson, Perseus and Theseus."
However, he's the first to admit that JK Rowling was an influence. "As a teacher, I've never seen anything like Harry Potter. That's why I smart when people talk about the 'next' Harry Potter. There is no 'next' Harry Potter. There never was a Harry Potter before Harry Potter. It's completely unprecedented in children's literature. I had students who read these books 13, 14 times and I would say, 'Great book, but don't you want to try something else?' And they would say, 'There's nothing else this good.'"
So, he says he "took some lessons" in her blend of humour, mystery, adventure, action, character. But mostly, he says, Harry Potter opened doors. "It made publishers aware there was a market for children's literature, and it convinced me, as it convinced a lot of writers, that writing for children was a viable thing to do."
He is now a full-time writer, but says: "I'm afraid I'm very ADHD, much like Percy. There are days when I'll write for 15 minutes and have to give up and move around, and I'll write another paragraph and give up again. On other days I get intensely focused on the process, sit down at 8am and won't get up until 8pm."
The other difference is that Haley is more confident and is even writing his own novels – an achievement that he rates as an "in yer face moment" for all those teachers who ignored him. "Basically, I misspell stuff but that's about as far as the dyslexia hinders me. It's coming straight from your head!"
He is keen to point out that they are full length novels – longer even than anything his father has ever written. "As soon as I bypassed him, I was like, wow, it's longer than you!" He smiles at his father and Rick smiles back. He's seen it all before, of course. "Every Greek hero has to make his father proud and yet outdo him," he says.
"That's a very strong motivator, especially for young men."
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is released on 12 February, percyjackson.co.uk
