New(ish) Books: Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory

I wrote my very first post on this blog about the first two volumes in George O'Connor's Olympians series of graphic novels about the ancient Greek gods, so I'm a little ashmaed that it took me this long to get around to the third installment. (I mean, the fourth is just around the corner.) I spent much of that previous post marveling over O'Connor's ability to create compelling, action-packed, illustration-driven narratives while remaining remarkably true to both the letter and the tone of the ancient mythology. And if anything, he trumps himself in Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory.

As the author points out himself in the book's end notes, the queen of Olympus is a tricky subject, portrayed in most of the best-known myths as a shrewish wife and a vindictive punisher of both the various mortal women who are seduced by her husband, Zeus, and their progeny by him. Yet O'Connor has found a way to add a feminist slant to Hera's story—one that doesn't feel the least bit forced—by smartly mining some of the lesser-known variants on these stories, particularly the ones surrounding Herakles. (His very name—which translates as "the glory of Hera"—gives an author a lot to work with, and as his subtitle indicates, O'Connor doesn't disappoint.). This may be the former classics major in me speaking here, but I'm blown away by the extent of the author's research, and even more by what he's able to do with it.

Mind you, Hera is also every bit the engrossing page-turner that O'Connor's previous two Olympians books were; our six-year-old was difficult to separate from Zeus: King of the Gods and Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess for the better part of a year, and this situation looks no different. (If anyone doubts my word, here's some direct-source backup for Hera's immense kid appeal.) All the Olympians books are in classic comic-book style (by which I mean the comic-book style of my childhood, naturally!), and it once again suits these tales perfectly. While I believe I have seen the labors-of-Herakles/Hercules stories executed in a comic-book format before somewhere or other before, the difference here is that O'Connor's is a really good graphic novel, one you—I mean, a kid—can read happily alongside the top entries in the genre. There's a reason these myths have had such staying power through the millennia—and O'Connor has captured it in these pages.

Can't wait for Hades....

P.S.: I just discovered that O'Connor also has a truly awesome Olympians website as well, with background on the mythology and the cast of characters, activities for kids, even resources for teachers! It will clearly be a challenge to keep Dash off the computer this month.

[Cover image courtesy of First Second Books.]

2010 Wrap: Books, Part 2

Another trend in kids' books last year was a continued surge in works either about or inspired by ancient Greek mythology. Much to my delight—as a child, I read these stories more than traditional Grimm fairy tales—this has been building for some time now, largely, I suspect, because of the phenomenal success of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series. Still, as recently as early last year I had trouble finding much to recommend to a friend whose daughter had plowed through the Riordan books and wanted to delve further into their original source material. (I ended up suggesting the classic D'Aulaires book, which is now nearly 50 years old.)

But 2010 brought a number of new entries. The two I liked best take very different approaches, one modern and cutting-edge, the other retro and, well, classical in style. Both, though, do a great job of capturing the feel of these ancient myths and presenting the narratives to kids in new, eye-opening ways, and of avoiding the stiff, stultifying tone that infects far too many kids' books on the subject. (As the Athenian playwrights knew—comedians and dramatists alike—these characters and stories are intended to be entertaining.)

The first was the subject of my very first post for this blog: George O'Connor's marvelous Olympians series, graphic-novel treatments of the tales of the major Greek gods. (Thus far we have Zeus and Athena, with hopefully many more on their way soon.) The conversion of the myths to the typical comic-book format and tone certainly has the effect of lightening the traditional weight of these stories, but that's a good thing—after all, the origin stories of the Olympian gods are among the more impenetrable myths in most retellings. O'Connor cuts right through that with his dynamic and colorful panels, while also remaining remarkably faithful to the original stories. His sources are the ancient poets and writers themselves (Hesiod, Pindar, etc.), and it shows. The results are irresistible to children—my older son couldn't put these books down for months—and also some of the clearest, most expressive, and I think truest representations in the English language of these old, old tales.

The second, which came out late in the year, handles the myths in more usual children's-book fashion. Greek Myths is a hardcover volume of concise retellings by Ann Turnbull of many of the more famous stories, accompanied by Sarah Young's gorgeous illustrations, which are modeled after classical Greek vase art. (The images bring to mind an out-of-print favorite of mine from my own childhood, a large-format Golden Books The Iliad and The Odyssey by Jane Werner Watson, illustrated in unforgettable fashion by Alice and Martin Provensen.) But if the format of Turnbull and Young's work is nothing new, their execution is among the best I've seen: clear storytelling and evocative art that, for me, catapults this book past the D'Aulaires' one (which, while groundbreaking in its time, feels pretty dated these days on both fronts). Going forward, Greek Myths will be my primary recommendation as a children's Greek-mythology primer.

Coming in part 3: Looking backward.

[Images courtesy of First Second Books (Zeus) and Candlewick Press (Greek Myths).]

New Books: A Dignity of Dragons

I first saw the art of Nicoletta Ceccoli in a book given to my older son when he was about three, a tale of what cats do at night called Oscar and the Mooncats, by Lynda Gene Rymond. The story was cute and spot-on for both the age group and Dash in particular (who loves cats), but what struck me immediately was the illustrations: gorgeously textured, slightly surreal paintings whose human and animal faces all had a particular stylized roundness. Ceccoli’s fingerprint was one I knew I’d always recognize.

I kept an eye out for more work by Ceccoli in the American market. (In the meantime, I learned she’s long been well regarded in her native Italy, having won the Anderson Prize there as best illustrator of the year in 2001.) Last year, I ran across How Robin Saved Spring, by Debbie Ouellet, an old-fashioned fable about various animals’ attempts to awaken Sister Spring and prevent Lady Winter from maintaining eternal frost. The story is lovely, but the art again takes it even further; once you’ve read it, you really can’t imagine it being accompanied by anyone else’s illustrations.

Then last month, I got my hands on Ceccoli’s latest work, A Dignity of Dragons: Collective Nouns for Magical Beasts, by Jacqueline K. Ogburn, a list book for early-graders inspired by the question “What do you call a group of unicorns?” Ogburn decided to come up with answers not just for that particular mythological creature, but for a bookful of them from around the world: a grapple of griffins, a flurry of yetis, etc. (It ends with a glossary explaining the background on each.) Every spread features a few of the creatures, grouped by habitat (yetis, abominable snowmen, and Bigfoots get one to themselves) or by region of origin (there’s a Greek page for centaurs, fauns, and minotaurs).

Again, it’s a cute idea for a short picture book—but one that relies heavily, even more than most picture books, on the art. But loosing this master illustrator on creatures of legend is one of those obvious ideas that turned out even better than expected. Untethered to the limits of a narrative, Ceccoli is free to let her imagination run loose, and the stunning results, like all her work, have a look all their own—like stills from a stop-motion animated film by Botticelli. Her human (or, here, partly human) figures have a pensive expressiveness right out of early Renaissance art, and as you study each image you notice that it’s presenting a little diorama. (The helmeted figure—presumably Oedipus outside Thebes—regarding the skeletons at the feet of a sphinx as he prepares to hear her riddle has a particularly wonderful raised eyebrow.) In essence, Ceccoli bestows her own subtle storytelling on a picture book whose inherent structure is without any—which means kids can lose themselves in these images for extended periods, as my five-year-old certainly has. (Click on the image below for a close-up look.)

Even at a more macro level, the art speaks for itself. Open to any page and you’ll see something I don’t think any other children’s-book illustrator could accomplish in the same way. She’s shown in just the three books I’ve read that she can take a good picture-book concept and elevate it to the greatest heights. What higher praise is there for someone in this line of work?

While I await Ceccoli’s next picture book for the U.S. market, I think I’m going to start trying to dig up some of her Italian work.

[Photos: Whitney Webster]

New Books: The Olympians

Greek myths were my fairy tales when I was young. I remember loving that the stories always seemed to have some kind of twist to them: the hero wasn’t always heroic, and even the gods themselves were often petty, jealous, and downright mean. The deities may have been nearly omnipotent, but they were also developed characters, and that always made for good stories.

So of course, I was eager to introduce these tales, which are getting a lot more play among kids these days anyway, to my son Dash, 5. We started with the classic D’Aulaires book, and he took immediately to the adventure stories: golden fleece, gorgon’s head, flying horse. Still, the D’Aulaires’ writing style often shows signs of the book’s age—for adventure tales, it can be a little dry. Yet there didn’t seem to be much else on this subject for a kid Dash’s age.

Enter graphic-novel artist and writer George O’Connor, who has created a series of comic books about the Olympian gods, published by First Second Books—the first two, Zeus: King of the Gods and Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess are already out. Now, I love comics as only someone who wasn’t allowed to have them as a child can, but I’ll admit to some initial skepticism: Marvel Comics delved into mythology long ago, and while the results often stood well enough on their own,  I wouldn’t use them to introduce anyone to the basics of Norse mythology.

But O’Connor has been rigorously faithful to the original myths—he even cites his sources (the big boys: Hesiod, Ovid, etc.), alongside suggestions for further reading in the back. His interpretations are vivid, absolutely gorgeous, and often revelatory. For instance, the Greek creation myths—Gaea and Uranus and the Titans and all that—can be murky stuff; I recall skipping over a lot of them as a kid to get to the juicier Olympian gods. But O’Connor begins his Zeus book at, well, the beginning, and then produces both the clearest and most beautiful portrayal of the pre-Olympians I’ve ever read or seen. 

And if he indulges in a little “teen Zeus” melodrama at times, well, what’s wrong with that? The Olympians spent a decent amount of their time acting like teenagers, frankly. (Fair warning: There is a bit of violence to these myths, and while O’Connor is never graphic in his portrayals, he doesn’t omit it entirely. Didn't bother me, but some might object.)

Of course, none of that would matter if the books didn’t play to kids. But Dash, who reads the D’Aulaires' book with calm interest, was over the moon at his first sight of Zeus--his eyes lit up, and he tore into it immediately. Both graphic novels have had great staying power, too, making repeated appearances at both bedtime and in his solo reading.

O'Connor has created a fantastic, and much-needed, addition to the Greek-myths-for-children genre. Dash can’t wait for his next entry (Hera—oooh!), and honestly, neither can I.

[Photos: Whitney Webster]