I don’t know much about Greek Mythology. But, hey, Zeus and Hercules and all that stuff has always been SUPER cool when it’s shown up in TV and movies! And then… yaaaaaaawn. I was reading sentences, and realizing that the material in the sentences should have been exciting. There was fighting. There was lots of drama and abrupt life (-no, WORLD-) altering things. Plus, explanations for the heavens and seasons and so on. That should be really interesting. For whatever reason, I couldn’t get along with the author’s writing style. It was easy enough to understand, it just wasn’t easy to enjoy. It wasn’t a terrible book, and I genuinely did like pieces; I’m merely pained by thinking that something SHOULD be so much more fun. ( )

audio (on playaway). At first I thought this retelling of "Jason and the Argonauts" and related stories was pretty dry, but once you get used to it, it's grand. The narrator is less expressive than I was expecting for a children's audio production, putting one to mind of an uninspired reading of a textbook, but his clear, precise pronunciation actually grew on me and I love it now. That said, if you are looking for something to put on to quiet your brain so you can sleep, this totally works. If you are looking for something that might get your fidgety child interested in mythology, this might not be it. ( )

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One of five titles to be selected as a Newbery Honor Book in 1922, the year that the award was instituted, Padraic Colum's The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles reads like a children's version of Hesiod's Theogony. The tale of Jason and the Argonauts, who set out on a quest to Colchis - a kingdom located in the northern Black Sea area, in what is now the Republic of Georgia - hoping to obtain the fabled Golden Fleece and bring it back to Greece, the book also features numerous storytelling interludes in which Orpheus relates to the other heroes various tales concerning the creation of the world and the adventures of the Olympian gods and goddesses.

Here the young reader will encounter the odd story of the early races of men - the golden, silver, and bronze - who came before our own. Here too is the tale of Prometheus and his theft of fire, and of Deucalion and his extraordinary boat. Pandora, Hades and Persephone, the hero Perseus - all appear in Orpheus' tales, which are embedded in Colum's larger narrative about the Argonauts, their quest, and their adventures afterward.

I enjoyed this book, which made me feel quite nostalgic for the wonderful course in classical mythology I took while in college, and am now longing to see Ray Harryhousen's film, Jason and the Argonauts, again. That said, I can certainly understand why someone would hesitate to recommend this to young readers, as I don't think it makes a very good introduction to the subject. It does not have the uninterrupted sequential narrative that contemporary children might expect, and assumes a basic knowledge of Greek mythology. As an intermediate step however, between such classic children's book as D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths and actual classical texts like Hesiod's Theogony and the Homeric Hymns, this would be ideal, I think. ( )