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Children's books

Join in for children's book recommendations.

Greek mythology for my 11 year old son?

17 replies

IreadthereforeIam · 18/08/2015 18:38

Does anyone have a recommendation for my 11 year old son? He has just finished the Puffin Classics book 'Tales of the Greek Heroes' and loved it, but can anyone recommend anything else? His obsession has not yet been fed!!
Thank you!!

OP posts:
grassroots · 18/08/2015 18:44

The Percy Jackson books - should be enough there to keep him busy for a while?

motherwithheadache · 18/08/2015 23:33

and it's Percy Jackson's birthday today and I failed to make blue cake...(so my dd says)

IreadthereforeIam · 19/08/2015 10:28

He has started the Percy Jackson series (told you he was obsessed!), so I'll just keep putting more his way! There does seem to be quite a few of them! Thanks!!

OP posts:
RiverTam · 19/08/2015 10:34

Do you think he's up to giving the Odyssey a go? The Iliad, which comes first, is pretty heavy going but you don't need to have read it to read The odyssey.

Capewrath · 21/08/2015 20:54

Old fashioned but Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales iirc. Presumably the Puffin is the Roger Lancelyn Green? If not, ace.

In the same mode as Our Island Story, get him The Story of Rome and The Story if Greece. Both again old fashioned.

Abe books is your friend.

A children's translation of the Odyssey would be great.

Capewrath · 21/08/2015 20:55

T T is free on project Gutenberg.

ChristineDePisan · 21/08/2015 20:57

Usborne Book of Greek Myths is good.

there's a series of graphic novels called The Olympians that he might like too

elfycat · 21/08/2015 20:59

Give him a notebook and a pen and send him down the library. Get an old-fashioned set of encyclopaedias and show him the index book, and let him look it all up himself.

Challenge him to draw the family tree of Greek gods. I still have my notes from over 25 years ago hanging around... That was a good summer holiday.

Be prepared for some pointed questions though... a lot of violence in those old tales, but I remain relatively unscathed and with a few story plots rolling around in my head.

sleepyhead · 21/08/2015 20:59

Rosemary Sutcliff did retellings of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, Black ships before Troy and The wanderings of Odysseus .

Capewrath · 21/08/2015 21:00

Also a story, not myth, Geoffrey Trease's The Crown of Violet, quite fun, with walk on parts for Socrates and Alcibiades iirc.

Capewrath · 21/08/2015 21:15

And finally, Classic Mth and legend by AHope-Moncrieff. Edwardian on Amazon.

Colyngbourne · 26/08/2015 23:24

I would second the Rosemary Sutcliff books - Black Ships Before Troy and The Wanderings of Odysseus. Superb text by the author and illustrations by LotR artist Alan Lee.

The Tony Robinson books of Greek legends (Odysseus the Greatest Hero of Them All and sequel and ones on Perseus and Theseus, I think) are also fun but lightweight in comparison.

Solasum · 26/08/2015 23:27

The Orchard book of Greek myths is very beautiful. Possibly a bit young for an 11yo, though.

Might he like to learn some Greek?!

BlueChampagne · 27/08/2015 12:55

Line up Robert Graves's Greek Myths (plus I Claudius etc) which I read in my early teens. Also Mary Renault.

IndridCold · 27/08/2015 14:49

You might want to look at Michelle Paver's latest books. I think the first one is called Gods and Warriors.

(So excited that children still get obsessed by Greek myths Smile.)

cornflakegirl · 27/08/2015 15:04

My 10yo likes Atticus the Storyteller. Also Helping Hercules by Francesca Simon. She has also written some books based around the Norse gods - the first one is the Sleeping Army - if he feels like branching out a bit.

Colyngbourne · 27/08/2015 22:20

My kids watched I Claudius once they were about 13 (with heavy parental warnings on one particular infamous scene with Caligula).

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