Tools
The Lost Hero 
by Rick Riordan
[Props: Worksheets; coach/baseball cap. Print out four copies and recruit three teen volunteers to play the roles of Jason, Leo, and Coach Hodges. I find it easier if you highlight each script with different colros: yellow for Jason, blue for the narrator, etc.) You’re the narrator. Hand worksheets to Jason & Leo; the baseball cap to the Coach. Group Jason & Leo to one side, Coach Hodges and the narrator on the other.]
Narrator: We join our characters on a field trip on a bridge over part of the Grand Canyon. They’re not really paying attention to the worksheet or the tour, because they’ve got bigger issues. And I’m not talking about the freak thunderstorm brewing over the canyon.
Jason: Seriously, Leo, you’re my friend, right?
Leo: Last I checked.
Jason: So when did we meet? What did we talk about?
Leo: I... I don’t remember. C’mon, I’m ADHD, man. You can’t expect me to remember the details...
Jason: But I don’t remember you at all. I don’t remember anyone here! What if--?
Leo: What if you’re right and everyone is wrong? You think you just magically appeared here this morning and we’ve all got fake memories of you? Even your girlfriend? Even PIPER?
Jason: Yes!
Coach Hodges: [walks over to Jason] Hey, kid: Are you doing this? [Gesture around you]
Jason: Do what--?? You mean... Are you seriously asking me if the thunderstorm is my fault?
Coach Hodges: [Glares at Jason, angrily]: Don’t play games with me! What are you doing here, and why are you messing up my job?
Jason: You mean... you don’t know me? I’m not one of your students?
Coach Hodges: Never seen you before! Look kid, I don’t know who you are. I just know what you are, and it’s trouble. Now I got three of you to protect, not just two. . I can smell the monsters, and know he’s being stalked. [Point at “Leo".]
Leo: Monsters? Stalked--?!
Coach Hodges: Pipe down, Leo. [To “Jason”] So I guess you’re the special package they told me about. I got a message from the camp about a special extraction team coming. So if you’re the special package, just hang tight. We’ll get you to the camp and let the director sort it all out.
Jason: The camp? The director? What is going ON here??!!
Coach Hodges: Just sit tight. Reinforcements should be here soon. Hopefully nothing will happens before-
Narrator: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
That’s when the lightning struck the bridge and miniature tornados swirled down out of the sky, and Dylan, one of the kids on the field trip? He dissolved into black smoke and attacked them.
Jason Hodges, his “girlfriend” Piper and his buddy Leo are all demi-gods headed for Camp Half-Blood, where the children of the gods can grow up safe until they’re ready to fight the monsters who hunt them. The problem is that Leo and Piper and all his memories of them are totally fake. Jason has NO memories of his past. Worse he is prophesied to become the key to either saving the gods, and the half-bloods--or destroying them all.
Percy Jackson has gone missing. The titans are rising. And it’s all up to Jason, Leo and Piper...
(booktalk by Kirsten Edwards, King County Library System)
Last Updated:
April 10, 2012
