Two new children's books from the brand-name writers Rick Riordan and John Grisham present special challenges for the adult reader - not that their publishers or target audiences care. But you, dear reader, are presumably not 11, so I offer this age-appropriate report. Rick Riordan, only a year removed from capping off his wildly popular five-volume "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series, now drops "The Red Pyramid," the first installment in The Kane Chronicles. Here’s the twist: The earlier books posit a world in which the Greek gods have been relocated to the contemporary United States, whereas "The Red Pyramid" resurrects Isis, Horus and a host of other major and minor Egyptian deities, and this time the setting is more global — after all, Riordan is no longer writing in the hegemonic Bush era but rather in the multilateral age of Obama. But once again wisecracking adolescent heroes and their supernatural allies find themselves at the center of cosmic battles with nothing less than the fate of the world at stake. The Percy Jackson books stood out for their sardonic, all-American sense of humor and even more so for their pell-mell pacing. Riordan writes the way Michael Bay directs, or would direct if Bay had ADHD, with eruptions of mayhem every few pages and exposition falling like hail. In this, it must be said, Riordan is not always parent-friendly. Say you are reading a Percy Jackson book to your children at bedtime and your mind begins to wander for even a single paragraph: you will find yourself cast adrift on a sea of churning narrative, having missed several plot points in the time it takes to wonder how many pages are left in the chapter and whether you'll be able to kiss everyone good night while the Yankees game is still in early innings. Some readers may also find themselves distracted by their admiration for Riordan’s many canny borrowings from the J. K. Rowling canon (itself hardly immune from debt). Like the Harry Potter series, the Percy Jackson books and the new Kane volume feature parallel supernatural worlds with their own laws and social mores, and a once-vanquished ultimate evil trying to reconstitute itself for a final assault on the forces of good. Not that Riordan isn't a funny, skilled and imaginative storyteller in his own right. But after seven books of Harry Potter and five of Percy Jackson, some parents and maybe even a few kids might welcome a chance to catch their breath. Oh, what am I saying? Riordan fans young and old will eat this new book up. "The Red Pyramid" is in almost every way an improvement over its predecessors, deeper and more emotionally resonant, and with an underlying moral and philosophical semi-seriousness. ("Gods have great power, but only humans have creativity," goes one saw; in this universe magic depletes its users, something like a nonrenewable resource.) None of which takes away from the thrills, as two estranged siblings, Carter and Sadie Kane — they narrate the story in alternating sections — are forced to team up and fight the evil god Set when their father, an Egyptologist (or is he?), disappears after a mysterious explosion in the British Museum. You see, Dad was using the Rosetta stone to try to unleash. . . . Well, my kids or your kids will be able to make sense of it. I’ll just quote from the text: "'Right,' I said. 'We're stuck in Washington, D.C. We have two days to make it to Arizona and stop a god we don’t know how to stop. And if we can't, we'll never see our dad or Amos again, and the world might end.'" Wait, how’d we get from London to Washington? Suffice it to say that breathlessness notwithstanding, "The Red Pyramid" is wholly satisfying while also setting the table for what promises to be a rip-roaring saga with nasty villains, engaging love interests, high stakes, the usual dark secrets and a basketball-playing baboon who loves the Lakers and eats only foods ending in o's, as in Doritos, burritos and flamingos. That last is very much a Riordan touch. Evil geniuses tend to be less common in real life than in fiction, but John Grisham, the master of the yuppie-pulp legal thriller, might just be one. "Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer" is his first book for children, and everyone I know in publishing figuratively smacked their foreheads when they first heard about it: Legal thrillers for kids — of course! Why didn’t we think of that? This reaction, and the prospect of the book itself, are frightening for a couple of reasons. One, the assumption that there is a vast audience of children just dying to read about making partner and inflating billable hours and two, the very idea of a kid lawyer — aren't youngsters argumentative enough without formal training? Then again, you have to give Grisham credit for stepping into an arena where being the author of "The Firm" counts for less than being the author of "Junie B. Jones Is a Beauty Shop Guy." In truth, Grisham has written a book that is both admirable and disappointing. Its hero, who goes by Theo, is not actually a lawyer, thank God, but his parents are, and he himself is a budding Elena Kagan: "At the age of 13, Theo was still undecided about his future. One day he dreamed of being a famous trial lawyer, one who handled the biggest cases and never lost before juries. The next day he dreamed of being a great judge, noted for his wisdom and fairness. He went back and forth, changing his mind daily." Grisham seems to want to instill in his readers a respect and perhaps even a sneaking affection for the legal profession. (Is he doing penance for all the corrupt attorneys in his adult books?) He tells his story scrupulously, explaining fine points of criminal law and, as far as I can tell (not being a lawyer myself), sticking to legal reality. As a civics lesson it goes down smoothly, as storytelling only partly so. There’s a reason that movies and TV shows about attorneys are full of courtroom baloney — it’s entertaining! Grisham’s tale also dares to assume that children still have attention spans, and unfolds with a measured pace that feels charmingly old-fashioned. So too the setting, the small city of Strattenburg, where kids respect authority figures and families live on "leafy" streets with names like Mallard Lane (Homer Price and Beezus Quimby could be Theo's neighbors), making this the most wholesome book ever written about a man on trial for strangling his wife. He appears to be guilty but the prosecution's circumstantial case is weak — that is, until Theo the courtroom buff inadvertently uncovers a witness who can place the accused at the scene of the murder. The only problem is, the witness is unwilling to come forward because he's an illegal alien. (A nice, hard-working illegal alien, Arizonans and Lou Dobbs) Will children be captivated by a story in which the young hero does what he'd probably do in real life, as opposed to a Hardy Boys book or, for that matter, a Carter and Sadie Kane installment: that is, responsibly turn the whole mess over to the grown-ups? Grisham writes, "Theo was hoping the adults would know what to do," a sentiment that would never pass muster on Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel. And kids may be perplexed by a book whose climax asks them to root for a pulse-pounding, heart-stopping ... mistrial. On the other hand, speaking again as an adult, I do appreciate the idea of a book in which justice, like the world, is not saved by someone who can't drive. #

*Starred Review* Since their mother's death, six years ago, 12-year-old Sadie Kane has lived in London with her maternal grandparents while her older brother, 14-year-old Carter, has traveled the world with their father, a renowned African American Egyptologist. In London on Christmas Eve for a rare evening together, Carter and Sadie accompany their dad to the British Museum, where he blows up the Rosetta Stone in summoning an Egyptian god. Unleashed, the vengeful god overpowers and entombs him, but Sadie and Carter escape. Initially determined to rescue their father, their mission expands to include understanding their hidden magical powers as the descendants of the pharaohs and taking on the ancient forces bent on destroying mankind. The first-person narrative shifts between Carter and Sadie, giving the novel an intriguing dual perspective made more complex by their biracial heritage and the tension between the siblings, who barely know each other at the story's beginning. The first volume in the Kane Chronicles, this fantasy adventure delivers what fans loved about the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series: young protagonists with previously unsuspected magical powers, a riveting story marked by headlong adventure, a complex background rooted in ancient mythology, and wry, witty twenty-first-century narration. The last pages contain a clever twist that will leave readers secretly longing to open their lockers at the start of school.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist

This fun, if formulaic, start to the Kane Chronicles series opens with a signature Riordan move: an explosion. Siblings Carter and Sadie have been living apart since their mother's mysterious death. On Christmas Eve, archeologist Julius Kane and son Carter, 14, show up in England for one of their two days a year with Sadie. Julius ushers his children to the British Museum, where he blows up the Rosetta Stone, unleashing five Egyptian gods and causing his own disappearance. The kids' Uncle Amos whisks them to a Brooklyn mansion, where he reveals that the Kanes descend from powerful Egyptian magicians. Swap Egyptian mythology for Percy Jackson's Greek gods and you've got the best part of this-an ancient history lesson seamlessly unfurled in a rip-roaring adventure. Told in alternating chapters by Carter and Sadie, the novel begins with a warning that the book is a "transcript of a digital recording," a distracting gimmick, and the attempts to make Sadie sound English by dropping in British slang are intermittent. Despite those flaws, Riordan delivers another funny yarn with kids in the lead and animal sidekicks that nearly steal the show. Ages 9-12. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Siblings Carter and Sadie Kane are plunged into a world of Egyptian gods and monsters when their father, secretly a powerful magician and descendant of the pharaohs, disappears after a failed spell blows up the Rosetta Stone and summons five gods into the mortal world. Fleeing assassination orders from the underground House of Life, the brother and sister begin to discover their new powers-to read hieroglyphics, to work spells using Divine Words, to create ghostly avatars to help them in combat-and soon learn that Carter is host to Horus, god of war, while Isis, goddess of wisdom, has manifested in Sadie. Under attack from magicians, monsters, and crocodile gods alike, and hoping to rescue their father from Set, god of chaos, the Kanes must find a way to banish the chaos god before he destroys all of North America. Similar in concept to the author's best-selling Percy Jackson books, the new series relies lightly on formula, here invoking Egyptian (rather than Greek) mythology and culture in a story driven by wisecracking adolescents in the modern world. Refreshingly for fantasy, Carter and Sadie are biracial; nicely individuated with honest, compelling voices, they share the duties of narration, while the action hits its stride in the second chapter and never lets up. Fans of the Riordan magic-equal parts danger, myth, and irreverence-will embrace this new series with open arms. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Gr 4-9-Riordan takes the elements that made the "Percy Jackson" books (Hyperion) so popular and ratchets them up a notch. Carter, 14, and Sadie, 12, have grown up apart. He has traveled all over the world with his Egyptologist father, Dr. Julius Kane, while Sadie has lived in London with her grandparents. Their mother passed away under mysterious circumstances, so when their father arrives in London and wants to take them both on a private tour of the British Museum, all is not necessarily what it seems. The evening ends with the apparent destruction of the Rosetta Stone, the disappearance of Dr. Kane, and the kidnapping of Carter and Sadie. More insidiously, it leads to the release of five Egyptian gods, including Set, who is their mortal enemy. Carter and Sadie discover the secrets of their family heritage and their ability to work magic as they realize that their task will be to save humanity from Set, who is building a destructive red pyramid inside Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. The text is presented as the transcript of an audio recording done by both children. Riordan creates two distinct and realistic voices for the siblings. He has a winning formula, but this book goes beyond the formulaic to present a truly original take on Egyptian mythology. His trademark humor is here in abundance, and there are numerous passages that will cause readers to double over with laughter. The humor never takes away from the story or from the overall tone. A must-have book, and in multiple copies.-Tim Wadham, St. Louis County Library, MO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.