Here is a good description from an education site:

Greek classics, with all their complexities, are understandably a little difficult for younger children to understand, but hey, with sea monsters, one-eyed giants, beautiful royalty, sailors on a dangerous sea, angry gods and goddesses, powerful enchantresses that can turn people into animals, and other strange creatures, there’s not much more than an adventure-craving reader could ask for in a book. Mary Pope Osbourne has retold The Odyssey for middle-grade readers, breaking it up into volumes of 8 or 9 chapters each. Large, readable print, and a “classic” look add to the appeal while the books also include additional information about Homer and The Odyssey, a map of the voyage, and a list of gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece. Also, a pronunciation guide to the names is appended, making the difficult job of stumbling through those long Greek names a little easier for youngsters.

I am not an expert on the Odyssey, or Greek mythology, by any means but I thought the series was a well done children’s version of this epic tale.  More thoughts below.

Osborne packs as much of the emotion and action into the stories as she can while keeping it simple and at an appropriate reading level. Obviously, you lose some of the depth and literary power when you simplify in this manner. But it is a great way to introduce the characters and the story arc.  You can glean a basic understanding of the Greek gods and goddesses and the basic plot of the Odyssey.

One things that struck me as I was reading was the smallness of the world at  the time.  Technology has “flattened” our world and make information ubiquitous. News flies around the world at the speed of light.  In this story, people must find out news by word of mouth as best they can. There is a great mystery as to what has really happened and who you can trust to provide accurate news from afar.  Odysseus‘s family is cut off from any real knowledge of what has happended and is forced to try and make sense of the scraps of legend and gossip that find their way to Ithaca.

I was also struck by how long Odysseus is kept from his family. Twenty years away from you wife and son!  No communication for twenty years. I am not sure why, but that struck me as an incredibly long time to be separated; and to hold on to your belief that your husband or father was still alive. The fact that story of his journey home is delayed and delayed by tragedy after tragedy really accentuates the tension and the weariness of Odysseus.

Image via Wikipedia

The other thing that really stands out is the role of hospitality in Greek culture and myth. Time after time Zeus is called upon and his protection of the stranger is invoked. Hospitality for strangers is a necessary part of a culture where death by the elements is a real threat and where there are not hotels readily available for travelers.  You welcome in the weary traveler because you know you just as easily be in the same situation.  Of course, you could also be showing hospitality to a disguised god or goddess!

But as noted above, this is also an important part of both entertainment and news gathering.  You invite a traveling stranger in to tell you about the wider world they have seen and to perhaps bring news of events.  The stories and myths of the oral tradition were of course part of the court entertainment but so were the tales and experiences of travelers and strangers.

As noted above, the volumes include a handy map of Odysseus’s Journey and a glossary of the gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece (with pronunciations). Reading this children’s version made me want to go back and re-read the full story. And perhaps I will.

So if you have young readers who are looking for action and adventure, and a helpful introduction to this classic story, I recommend this well done series.

Here is the synopsis courtesy of the publisher:

A young shepherd, Corydon, is driven out of his village because of his unusual appearance and then captured and put on display as a monster. Alongside him in the traveling freak show are Medusa, the Minotaur, the Sphinx, and other classical beasts. When Corydon helps these monsters to escape their cages, they scatter to seek peace and solitude away from prying eyes. But then an army of “heroes” arrives hoping to win glory by killing the monsters, and Corydon must unite these unloved and unlikely allies to fight for their survival and for their island home.

It caught my attention for the above reasons, but also because Tobias Druitt is the pen name of a mother and son team – the mother Oxford Don and her still in school son.  It turned out to be an interesting twist on the Greek Myths – the monsters are the good guys. It pits the Olympian gods against the Chthonic gods.

The story is a little uneven in parts – mostly because it seems unsure of what type of story it is – a serious or semi-comic reworking of Greek mythology in a YA fantasy. But what saves it is the character of Corydon and his interaction with the monsters.

Corydon is the type of character you root for: sincere, loyal, generous, and brave despite his rough life and seeming inability to fit into normal society. There is a certain amount of cheesiness in the “all the misfits unite to defend themselves” story but for the most part it works.

While it isn’t deep literature the characters are interesting. The monsters become more than just symbols but characters with personalities and feelings. And the twist on the normal portrayal of the heros and Olympians proved interesting.

All in all an uneven but imaginative and entertaining first book in this trilogy. It will be interesting to see how the series develops.

You really don’t need to know anything about the myth, however, to enjoy the story.  It really reads like a fast paced adventure story.  Here is the publisher’s teaser:

When her adopted father is slain by a strange beast, Atalanta is determined to take care of herself. She is happy in the forest with only her friend Urso — a giant bear — for company. She wants nothing to do with the world of men.

But the ferocious creature that killed her father is still out there, and Atalanta can’t resist the opportunity to hunt it down, even if that means she has to join forces with a group of hunters to do so. Atalanta must prove that she is as strong and brave as any of the others, as they search together for the deadly Arcadian Beast.

It is an interesting blend of action adventure and subtle explorations of issues like family, gender and identity that are so prevalent in Greek mythology

More below.

It turns out there really wasn’t much overlap between the two YA approaches to this legend. Yolen and Harris use a very different perspective.

Image via Wikipedia

While Spinner used the Calydonian Boar Hunt part of the myth to start the story Yolen and Harris morph the story into the hunt for an “Arcadian Beast” or mantiger that is sort of a combination Chimera and manticore. Spiner also focuses on what happens to Atalanta after she finds out about her royal lineage while Yolen and Harris focus on the events leading up to that revelation.

Yolen and Harris portray Atalanta as a exceptional huntress but also fiercely independent and competitive.  She is perfectly comfortable in the woods – her closest companion is bear – but as a result less adept at social interaction and the niceties of town life; let alone the culture and intrigue of the palace.

So for her the challenge is more than just tracking the beast and getting revenge for her father’s death it is also about learning how to interact with others and to be part of group larger than her immediate family. As the hunt moves from deep in the forest to local town to far away capitol this gets more challenging. And the mystery of her true parents adds an element of suspense and tension.

This quest brings her into contact with not only the hero Orion, the god Pan and the royal family but also in Evenor a family that she can feel apart of. Twice adopted (once by the she-bear and then by her hunter father) she ends up rejecting her blood family – for the time being anyway, the story leaves her eventual return open – and choosing instead what feels like home.

Atalanta can be a prickly and rather proud young women but the story also relates why someone of her skill and background might act this way. As noted, she had little opportunity to sharpen her social skills in the forest where her family and the animals were her only contacts.

But larger Arcadian society also refused to take her seriously as as young women. She is constantly having to prove herself worthy of the hunt.  It is only by saving Evenor’s children that she first win’s acceptance in the town. And it is only by beating Orion in a foot race that she wins the right to be in the hunt. And when events force her to lead the hunt to kill the beast she must once again prove she is up to the challenge even while politics of the royal court and the plots of the gods conspire against the hunt.

Along the way, Pan pops up to chide her and remind her that no matter how much she loves the forest and her bear companion Ursu as a human her fate will in the end be tied to people not animals.  Atalanta accepts this finally but chooses which family to be a part of and in that way stays true to herself.

But all of these are really undercurrents to the story – elements that are part of the underlying myth. Yolen and Harris really just use the characters and elements of the legend to tell a good story. One of a young hero who faces tragedy and but is strong enough and determined enough to rise above it.

Young readers familiar with Greek mythology will enjoy this fast paced read just as much as those with a little more familiarity. And it serves as a good introduction to the building blocks of these classic stories. I plan to check out the other volumes in this Young Heros series.

Edmund White’s NYT review has a concise plot summary:

David Malouf’s “Ransom” reimagines the tragic story at the heart of “The Iliad.” Achilles mourns his childhood friend Patroclus after he is killed by Hector. Achilles takes his revenge by killing Hector in battle and desecrating his body.

The central action in Mr. Malouf’s novel occurs when Priam, Hector’s father and king of Troy, travels in a mule-drawn cart with half of the city’s treasure (the “ransom”) to plead for the return of Hector’s body so that it can be buried properly. Two instances of towering grief meet in the encounter.

As is so often the case, your knowledge of the backstory and your expectations will play a big role in your take on this story.

Those with a stronger knowledge of the Illiad and the story at the center of the novel might have stronger feelings and/or higher expectations that those who read it “straight” as it were.

But one thing I think everyone can agree on is that it is beautifully written and, at times, quite moving. More below.

First, the writing. I have not read any of Malouf’s previous work but the prose in Ransom is sparse but descriptive. There is both a poetic (and you could argue historical) and a philosophical/psychological side to the story. The two don’t always blend together well but the both are easy on the eyes and ears. On this critics agree.

The aforementioned White’s NYT review:

The writing is vivid and often wonderfully detailed, especially in the nature descriptions … On page after page the prose is specific and noble, an unusual mix since nobility usually depends on generalities, and the specific usually deflates grandeur.

Tom Holland’s Guardian review:

Both the lyricism of his prose and the delicacy of his characterisation enable Malouf to avoid the risk of bathos that so often stalks novelists when they try to update epic.

Michael Dirda at the WaPo:

Malouf can write brilliantly in the “low” register of a Somax or describe nature with a Wordsworthian attentiveness, he is equally convincing in suggesting the grave diction of epic.

But these reviews also don’t think Malouf quite pulls of what he was aiming for. White:

“Ransom” is a similarly serious, often beautiful examination of the contrast between the simple sincerity of the carter and the strangely abstract existence of the king. It is dignified and thought-provoking — but it doesn’t seem to me to be exactly a work of art, to be fully realized and embodied in the lives of its characters. It is more a metaphysical inquest than episodes from messy, contingent experience.

Holland:

Yet none of these virtues can quite outweigh the nagging feeling that anyone who wants to read about Priam’s ransoming of his dead son would be much better off picking up Homer’s own account.

[...]

As it is, Ransom falls between the two stools: neither true enough to Homer, nor sufficiently untrue to him either.

(or read Steve Donoghue’s passionate evisceration of the novel’s “lack of drama”)

To my mind these critics allow their expectations to set the bar. White wants art without the psychology and philosophy that Malouf includes while Holland wants Homer retold.

To me Malouf was using this small hook from this classic ancient text, and a few other myths as well, to explore a variety of topics; from war and fatherhood to being forced to play a role and its impact on humanity to how stories and the need for them drives our lives.

Yes, in certain ways, Malouf’s approach is obviously modern or even post-modern. He seeks to get inside Priam’s head and understand what it might have been like to make that epic journey to beg for the body of your son from his killer.

But at the same time he wants to explore what it mean to be king or how positions of power may trap people into roles that undermine their humanity or block them off from reality.

Malouf both puts you in the ancient world with the eyes of Achilies, Priam and the cart driver but he also stands back and looks at them through a “modern” lens. He both tells a story and wonders about how archetypes and stories work.

Ransom is not a traditional novel by any means and it isn’t a historical novel either. It reminds me more of the Myths series by Canongate – taking an aspect of a myth and re-working it to see if from a different angle.

I found this short read to be an interesting and thought provoking approach to a classical story. Musings on war, family, stories and more wrapped in a iconic wagon ride. Even if Malouf doesn’t quite pull of the master piece some seem to have been expecting it was worth the ride.

The Beautiful Stories of Life: Six Greeks Myths, Retold by Cynthia Rylant is aimed at children but it makes for an enjoyable read no matter how old you are.

Here is the publishers blurb:

Newbery Medal-winner Cynthia Rylant retells her favorite stories from Greek mythology, breathing fresh life into the tales of Pandora, Persephone, Orpheus, Pygmalion, Narcissus, and Psyche. The writing is lyrical and understated, a perfect tone for stories that introduce young readers to themes of love and loss, pride and forgiveness. Carson Ellis‘s elegant black-and-white illustrations lend an aura of beauty and mystery.

Rylant’s style and tone reminded me of a good story teller sitting down and offering their version of these famous stories.  They are simple and straightforward – and thus enjoyable for young people – but they also contain brief commentaries or observations about human nature and life – which make them interesting and enjoyable for adults.

The reason these stories have stood the test of time is because they offer reflections and insights into human nature. And even as she simplifies them, Rylant keeps this foundation intact. But she doesn’t beat you over the head with some didactic lecture, but instead slyly offers her take on what these stories are getting at and why they resonate with us even today.

I think PW sums it up well:

The small format reflects the book’s purpose: to be a pleasurable sampling of some well-known Greek myths, their ideas and morals distilled to their core.

This would make a nice collection to have for bedtime reading, or storytime, but it would also be great for older readers wanting to get their feet wet with a simple introduction to the Greek myths.