Charles asked Rick Riordan:

Hi Rick! Gotta start by saying, I am so grateful for the work you do to promote diverse authors and your intentional inclusion of diversity in your characters. As both a teacher and a writer with a child audience, how do you grapple w/ teaching mythology while being honest about the dark, and arguably sometimes evil things the gods do in the myths? Do you ever wish you could address those things more directly?

Rick Riordan Well, you're so right about the dark side of mythology. It is a challenge to figure out how to present stories to kids when those stories are in many ways mining the darkest and most problematic elements of human nature, but that's also why the stories are so enduring. They are talking about problems and crises and traumas we have always faced and still do, many of them rooted in inequality of power. When you have gods interacting with humans, can you ever really have an equitable, consensual relationship of any kind? I just try to relate the stories in a way I think young readers will find fascinating but not traumatizing, while leaving lots of room for them to ask questions. This is also an issue with any sacred text. The Bible comes to mind. There is some messed-up child-unfriendly stuff in there!

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