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knowloveserve
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| Posted: Jan 26 2011 at 6:34pm | IP Logged
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If you aren't blessed to own a copy of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths, there are plenty of other great individual picture books out there.
One of my favorite sections of the local library is the fairy tale/folk tale/myths section where so many gems of beautiful picture books get stashed that miss the eyes of parents who just peruse the children's section.
It is there that I've discovered some goodies. But I just wanted to start a thread on books you all may know of also that illustrate great myths. We regularly use Classical Myths to Read Aloud for narration and I love the language and tidbits of extra info in there so I don't want to stop that. But it's been really nice to supplement the stories with a picture version after we do narrations.
Some titles we've enjoyed are (all found in our library):
Persephone
Damon, Pythias and the Test of Friendship
Pegasus
Pandora
If you all know of others, post away!
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Ellie
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MaryM
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Great topic, Ellie! I have been looking for picture book representations of stories from mythology as well - for a chronological history compilation.
I've read and enjoyed Mayer's Pegasus and Burleigh's Pandora too.
There are several great King Midas books out there:
King Midas: The Golden Touch (Demi)
Midas and the Golden Touch (Charlotte Craft)
King Midas: A Golden Tale (John Stewig)
King Midas (Neil Philip)
Atalanta's Race (Shirley Climo)
There are a few others I've seen on amazon that look really good, which I'd been meaning to request but haven't. And now our library request system is down til mid-February. But you've got me excited about tracking more down again.
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Mary M. in Denver
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MaryM
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knowloveserve wrote:
| One of my favorite sections of the local library is the fairy tale/folk tale/myths section where so many gems of beautiful picture books get stashed that miss the eyes of parents who just peruse the children's section. |
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Are these children's books in the regular fairy tale/folk tale/myth section? They are in the children's section here - and I would agree there are many beautiful picture books in this genre. We should have some threads for the folk and fairy tales (I think we do have a few fairy tale threads).
Probably should make sure we include the other D'Aulaire's myth book in this thread as well.
D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths
Have you found other good Norse myth picture books? What about Roman? As most I have found are Greek.
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Mary M. in Denver
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knowloveserve
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Yes, at all the libraries we've been to, they have the children's fairy/folk/myth books mixed in the adult section of that type of literature. Took me a while to pick up on that but once I found it, I feasted. 
No, there are some Norse titles out there but I think they gear more toward juvenile literature rather than picture books.
Roman myths... nope. I just tell my kids they are the same characters with different names (e.g. Zeus = Jupiter, Hades = Pluto, Poseidon = Neptune, etc.). The Romans -as is the case in many areas- just sort of took all the Greek myths and made them their own. The only significant difference in character that I know of is Mars and Ares the gods of war.
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Ellie
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MaryM
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knowloveserve wrote:
| Yes, at all the libraries we've been to, they have the children's fairy/folk/myth books mixed in the adult section of that type of literature. Took me a while to pick up on that but once I found it, I feasted. |
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That is interesting...glad ours are shelved in the children's section. Well, this has got me on the mythology picture book trail again. I' just request a bunch from our neighboring library system (since we can't access ours right now) so I should have more to review soon.
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SeaStar
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Can I ask when you started reading these to your dc?
Did you do it as part of a unit or history study- or did you just jump in with them and enjoy them as stories?
I've only read a couple of myths to my dc, and they loved them. but then I wonder if I should "save" them for the right time... whenever that is 
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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knowloveserve
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I started with my son at age 7. My current six year old loses interest with the Classic Myths book because the language is challenging a bit.
But D'Aulaire's might be more presentable...
I think 7 is a good age for a whole number of starts.
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MaryM
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I've been looking for some more picture book depictions of mythology.
The Arrow and the Lamp: The Story of Psyche (Margaret Hodges) is a good one.
Pamela Espeland has written several about different Greek myths. I was able to get a copy of Theseus and the Road to Athens. It was pretty simplistic and the illustrations not particularly engaging to me, but it does an adequate job of conveying the story for a younger audience.
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knowloveserve
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Cupid and Psyche. I'm in awe over anything illustrated by Kinuko Craft. We fell in love with her while reading Pegasus.
And who knew Jane Yolen had a story about Icarus and Daedalus? I just put it on hold at the library: Wings.
And one last addition to our list so far is this promising book about the Trojan Horse. Incidentally it's bargain priced on Amazon right now, but I've been temporarily grounded from any more book purchases (  )so I have to settle for previewing it at the library. The Trojan Horse
ETA: We received both Wings and Trojan Horse yesterday. Wings is very, very beautiful. It's authentically written and the art is lovely. Do note that this story has a tragic ending that may be disturbing for sensitive children, and Yolen stays true to that.
Trojan Horse is a great boy book. It's written in comic book fashion with lots of schematics and cartoons. It's neat how they show the cross-section of what the inside of the horse would look like. It's not MY personal favorite form of illustrations or humor but my boys like it. (It reminds me very much of the "You wouldn't want to be a ______" series if anyone knows what I'm talking about.)
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knowloveserve
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Found a couple more treasures!
The Twelve Labors of Hercules is a really, really cool book. It's fairly long and would make a good book to read over the course of a good week or so. The art is graphic... so there's no shying away from blood dripping from the lion's mouth or the horrible Cerberus at the end. But this really had my son engaged from start to finish... I never knew the full story of Hercules and it's a rather twisted and crazy tale when all is said and done. After his twelfth labor, things get very strange... I'd save this for at least age 9 or older.
If you want to get a very truncated version of Hercules, this one by Burleigh is excellent. It only details the final labor and leaves out all the sordid details about him killing his wife and children etc.
The Hero and the Minotaur is very, very well done also; it tells the story of Theseus and weaves in the Icarus and Daedalus tragedy as well.
Snake Hair is probably the YOUNGEST book available for mythological stories. It's pretty much a reader but the artwork is a nice cut paper collage and it leaves out all the sexual stuff in the Medusa tale.
Lastly, I want to point out Arachne Speaks for its beautiful telling of the Athena/Arachne tale. The illustrations are super...
I made a Listmania List of most of these books and a few others... many are out of print but I was able to find a lot of them at the library.
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Ellie
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4Real Forums : Picture Book Discoveries
Topic: Mythology
