Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory

Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory
by George O’Connor

The Olympians series continues with Hera, Queen of the Gods, who always seems to be known only for her terrible jealousy and temper.  O’Connor attempts to dispel that reputation and spin Hera’s delicate wrath in a new light.  Starting with Zeus’ pursuit of her, she is painted as a strong female character with family values at the center of her actions.  Most of the book is taken up with the story of Heracles (Hercules in the Latin), who was forced to do twelve tasks to appease the goddess.  While he is furious that he is made to do these things simply because he is a bastard child of Zeus, Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts) gives him a different perspective.  If she hadn’t made him do all of these things, he never would have won the glory and heroism that have made his name known throughout the world.  It even means “The Glory of Hera.”

In the afterward, O’Connor admits that Hera is his favorite goddess.  He contests that she gets a bad rap because pretty much all mythology was written down by men – they never bothered to ask the women their tales.  There were some stories in here about Hera that I’d never heard before.  And there probably are a lot more that will never be told because they never were written down by men.  The book as a whole has a good composition, and Hera’s story and artwork is much easier to follow than her husband’s.  And if you pay attention closely, you can see how they all begin weaving into one another.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

Greek Myths

Greek Myths
by Ann Turnbull and Sarah Young (illus.)

In this collection of Greek myths, Turnbull assumes the reader already knows some Greek mythology.  While some of the myths are very well-known to most children (e.g. King Midas and the Golden Touch), many will probably be new.  She doesn’t get into the creation or origination of the Olympians a great deal.  Instead, she focuses on the interrelations between a lot of the myths concerning mortals and demigods.

The D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths was probably one of my favorite books as a child.  It’s well told, well illustrated, well laid-out, and doesn’t shy away from some of the more gruesome aspects of the mythology.  Turnbull and Young’s offering tries to follow in that vein, and that’s a good thing.  Upon opening the book, my first thoughts were along the lines of “This is a nice book.”  It’s just laid-out very nicely with the amount of text and the BEAUTIFUL artwork.  This book was as much a pleasure to look at as it was to read.  There were also some myths in here with which I was not familiar, which pleased me.  I love when I can learn something new.  The only criticism I have of this book is that the myths do not seem to be organized.  They sort of are in broad categories (e.g Monsters and Men), but there wasn’t an excellent structure to them, which keeps it from being a 5-star book.  I do, however, like how she ended it, with Pandora’s jar and Hope comforting humankind.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess

Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess
by George O’Connor

In the second title in the Olympians series, O’Connor looks at Athena, daughter of Zeus, goddess of wisdom and strategy.  Unlike the Zeus chronicle, Athena’s story is told by the three fates.  And instead of one linear story, they tell brief excerpts from the mythology surrounding her.  Like the first book, Athena also has god and hero profiles included.

There are lots of reasons I think I liked this book better than the first one.  One, I learned about myths I’d never heard before.  I was already familiar with some of the myths about Athena, but O’Connor taught me some new ones, too.  Thank you.  Also, I liked the structure of the storytelling better.  I feel like it fits more with how mythology is told (since it was told long before it was written down).  Thirdly, I may just like Athena better as a character, especially since I never recognized the partnership she had with Hermes, who is probably one of my favorite Greek gods.  I still had trouble with some of the panels being too dark to see anything happening, but overall a satisfying follow-up to the first one.  More please.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Zeus: King of the Gods

Zeus: King of the Gods
by George O’Connor

Of all of the great Greek gods, Zeus’ name seems to stand higher than the rest.  And so it should – he’s the king.  In Zeus: King of the Gods, O’Connor tells us his history and his rise to the throne on Mount Olympus.  Each Olympians book also contains profiles on major players and places in mythology.

I love Greek mythology.  One of my favorite books as a kid was the D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths, which chronicles pretty well the same stories related by O’Connor.  I think the idea of having these myths as a graphic novel series is an excellent idea.  I’m just not so sure about the execution.  Many of the panels are so darkly painted or they are so confusing that I can’t tell what’s going on during much of the action scenes.  That may be me as a novice graphic novel reader, but if I didn’t already know what was going on in the story, I would have no clue what happened.  A mildly frustrating read, but I will still hold out hope for the others.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Goddess Boot Camp

Goddess Boot Camp
by Tera Lynn Childs

Warning!!!  Contains spoilers for Oh. My. Gods.!!!

In the follow-up novel to Oh. My Gods., things seem to be going pretty well for Phoebe.  She has an amazing, super-hot boyfriend, she’s adjusting to her new life in Greece, and, oh yeah, she’s the great-granddaughter of Nike, the goddess of victory.  That comes with some pretty sweet powers.  Unfortunately for Phoebe, she has practically no control over her powers.  Doubly-unfortunately, the gods have decided to give her a test to see if she can control her ridiculously strong powers, being such a close descendant of them.  With only two week to prep, her step-father signs her up for Goddess Boot Camp where she will learn to control her powers.  If that wasn’t embarrassing enough in itself, it looks as though her boyfriend might be secretly hooking up with his ex.  All this drama with the slight chance of being smote before the end of the summer?  Sounds like a typical vacation for Phoebe.

I really like Tera Lynn Childs’ work.  There’s no great depth or anything to them, but sometimes it’s nice to read a book where everything works out the way that it’s supposed to.  And I was highly pleased to get that out of this book, especially after my last entry.  I personally also enjoyed her librarian character, and the discovery of the term “librarianatrix.”

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

Oh. My. Gods.

Oh. My. Gods.
by Tera Lynn Childs

Phoebe knows where she is going.  She is almost guaranteed a track scholarship to USC, the college that she and her two best friends have been planning to go to together since kindergarten, and no one is going to beat her when she sets her mind to what she wants.  Except maybe her mother, who goes off to Greece to visit her dead husband’s family, gets engaged and decides to relocate the family to Serfopoula, an island in the Aegean Sea, within a few short weeks.  Phoebe’s life is practically ruined.  Then she’s in for the shock of her life.  Her new step-dad is the principal of this super-exclusive prep school.  There is only one requirement for admission – you have to be the descendant of a Greek god. So as soon she thought everything was going well, now she’s stuck on an island without her best friends living with the most horrible step-sister in a place inhabited only be people who are the great great great great great great great great grandchildren of mythological figures.  And it seems very unlikely that she’ll get her track scholarship running on a team of kids descended from Ares, Artemis, and Hercules.  Or so everyone else but her coach thinks.  Coach Lenny knows Phoebe’s got potential (more than she might realize), and pushes her to exceed her potential.  And in the mean time, there’s also some serious boy drama with a guy she can’t figure out whether or not he’s good or bad.  So not the senior year she was expecting.

If the story of Percy Jackson had a 17 year old sister, it would be Oh. My. Gods. Kids not knowing about descendants of Greek gods, having a school set apart for training and honing their powers, etc.  But there’s certainly not a quest – it’s very much a typical high school girl YA novel when it comes to the story line.  It’s not a bad thing.  It’s highly predictable, but that doesn’t mean there’s not any fun in it.  It was interesting to think about typical high school cliques in terms of Greek gods’ descendants: jocks, cheerleaders, populars, etc., though I thought it was also interesting that Childs didn’t describe the children of Bacchus   It also got me to wondering which clique I would have fit into, and I totally would have wanted to be with the Athenians – the book worms!

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

The Lightning Thief
by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson does not lead a normal life like most kids his age.  He has a tough time in school and seems to be constantly getting in trouble and having to change schools.  He knows absolutely nothing about his father.  His classics professor seems to come down harder on him than any other student.  And his best friend is half goat.  Well, he doesn’t learn the last part until a little bit later, when he has to go to a summer camp to save his life.  He learns that he’s the son of Poseidon (yes, Poseidon, the Greek god), and he’s an abomination to the deities because Poseidon wasn’t ever supposed to reproduce after a pact that was made up in Olympus.  Not good for Percy.  It turns out that (uncle) Zeus’ lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the one that has to go get it to prove to the gods that he should be allowed to live.  Rough deal, huh?

So in case you couldn’t tell from my synopsis of this book, I didn’t really care for it that much.  To me, this book seemed like Harry Potter – witchcraft and wizardry + Greek mythology = Percy Jackson.  Let’s look at this, shall we?

• Harry, the Boy Who Lived –> Percy, the Boy Who Should Have Never Been Born
• Hermione (smart) and Ron (clumsy best friend) –> Annabeth (smart) and Grover (clumsy best friend)
• Hogwarts –>Camp Half-Blood
• Houses based on founders –> Cabins based on Olympians
• Death-Eaters trying to kill the Boy Who Lived while he searches to find out his past –> Angry mythological creatures trying to kill the Boy Who Should Have Never Been Born while he is figuring out where he came from

I’m sorry, but I feel like this story has already been done, and Rowling made a lot more money off of it.  Of course with Rowling’s books, I feel like the quality went down after the fourth one.  Maybe Riordan’s will go up?  Maybe I’ll read them all one day (Aaron, I know you said they were better) when I can’t think of anything else to read.

Going to see the movie on Wednesday (yay $2 theater!) so we’ll see how I feel about that.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com