The Kane Chronicles are a series of books by Rick Riordan. They include The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire, and The Serpent's Shadow. I'm unsure on how to categorize this series. It has won both middle grade fantasy awards AND YA fantasy awards. In my local library, it was in the junior fiction section, but at our military base library, it was in the YA section. If you only consider reading level, I'd say it was definitely a middle grade series. There are only a few things that would cause me to consider it YA, but I'll list those below!
Sex: There is no sex in these books. But the main characters, Sadie and Carter are 12/13 and 15. (Sadie has a birthday during the series.) Romantic relationships play a pretty big part in these books. Carter is the older brother and he is in love with a character named Zia. Several of his decisions are based on Zia. Sadie is 12 at the beginning of the series and turns 13 in the second book. She's a tad bit boy crazy. She talks often about how "hot" and attractive the god Anubis is. She also develops a relationship with a 16 year old character named Walt. She's torn between the two throughout the series. Nothing major romantically happens, besides a few kisses. But I felt like it was important to note that their romantic relationships played a big role in the books. In my opinion, Sadie doesn't act 13 at all. I think Rick Riordan could have increased Sadie and Carter's ages by 2 years each. The only other thing I noticed was a scene where a hippo goddess was described as big chested and Carter had trouble looking away. But besides that, I didn't see anything else worrisome.
Violence/Gore/Frightening Scenes/Death: This book has a lot of magical violence in it. There are tons of action packed fight scenes. Everything is good vs. evil, and nothing is TOO graphic. But the characters are constantly blowing stuff up and fighting other magicians and Egyptian gods. There are several deaths and a few hit close to home. (I don't want to spoil anything!)
Language: I don't recall a single curse word in any of the 1400 pages of this series. There was a time when Sadie said that Carter let loose with a few Egyptian curse words, but nothing is actually said.
Alcohol/Drug Abuse: Some of the gods and demons are celebrating with champagne at the end of the series and are made to seem drunk. This is the only instance of alcohol being mentioned.
Final Note: This is a magical book. It's written as though Egyptian gods are real. Not only are the gods real, but there is a group of mortal magicians whose only job is to keep the gods in line. Moses is actually mentioned twice in the series, as the only "magician" to defeat the gods without actually being in the elite magician society. If you're a Christian/Jewish family, it may be something you want to discuss before your kids read the series. There are ghosts and demons and lots of different gods. But it's really no different than the Percy Jackson series. It's just Egyptian mythology instead of Greek mythology. It's appealing for both boys and girls because Sadie and Carter both tell the story. The perspectives change from chapter to chapter. All in all, it was a fun series to read. I personally enjoyed the Percy Jackson series more, but this was a close second!
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