Percy Jackson has ADHD. And he’s a demigod!
In the first chapter of the first book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, Percy gets frustrated because he thinks his teacher, Mr. Brunner, expects too much from him “despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and had never made above a C- in my life.”
“No—he didn’t expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better,” Percy complains in the opening pages of Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief. “And I just couldn’t learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.”
Up until this point in the book, Percy has talked about his struggles in previous schools and how they brought him to Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids. Though Percy’s struggles are exaggerated — he implies that he accidentally exploded a school bus with a cannon — they will likely be recognizable for anyone with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).
October is ADHD Awareness Month. It’s the time of year when a group of non-profit organizations work together to help people all over the world learn about the symptoms and potential treatments for ADHD.
Kids with ADHD may daydream when they should be working on schoolwork or chores. They might have trouble getting along with other kids. Sometimes they might make choices that are a little risky or make silly mistakes. They might have trouble sitting still, or waiting their turn in a game or class discussion. They might talk when they’re not supposed to, or misplace their stuff and lose their toys.
Here’s how Vanya Vallen describes her experience with ADHD in the first chapter of Vanya and the Wild Hunt by Sangu Mandanna.
“I had ADHD, and after a lot of long, incredibly boring tests and assessments, we now had paperwork confirming it. This was supposed to be a good thing, because it meant that a lot of the things I’d thought were me being lazy and just a bit rubbish (forgetting things, lying on my bed doing nothing even when I knew I had stuff to do, daydreaming, etcetera, etcetera) weren’t actually lazy or rubbish at all. They were just how my brain worked.”
In Absolutely Everything, author and illustrator Damian Alexander uses the graphic novel to show how ADHD feels for the main character, Marcella. When too many people are talking around her in her sixth-grade classroom, Alexander writes their words as scratched out or blurry. A classmate tapping their pencil is so distracting it fills up the entire comic panel around Marcella. When she tries to focus, she sees the faces of her family and friends floating around her, talking in her ear.
Alexander says that it took him until he was an adult to get officially diagnosed with ADHD. But, once he knew he had it, he says: “I made steps to manage what had held me back for years. I keep my space organized, minimize distractions, and listen to calm, repetitive music to focus on a task.” He says that he still daydreams and gets off track sometimes, but it’s better than it was before he knew he had ADHD.
That’s what ADHD Awareness Month is all about. If someone doesn’t know they have ADHD, they may feel alone and struggle to understand why they’re different from their friends and family. But there is help available and learning is the first step.
If you’d like to learn more about ADHD, you can check out these books at DeKalb Public Library.
Nonfiction:
Fiction:
Graphic Novel:
Give us a call at 815-756-9568 ext. 3350 or email us at [email protected] if you have any questions!