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Calliope's Library
@calliopeslibrary.bsky.social
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http://calliopeslibrary.org

Calliope’s Library seeks to help readers find books that they will love that are about the ancient world or inspired by it.
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Read Krishni Burns' write-up of Ali Smith's _Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis_ on Calliope's Library: www.calliopeslibrary.org/girl-meets-b...
Cover of Ali Smith's Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis. Title: Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis Author: Ali Smith. Year: 2007. Tags: New Adult, Novel, 21st Century worlds, Female lead, LGBTQIA+, Gender diverse, Iphis and Ianthe, Ovid, English. This book is actually kind of hard to describe. It is narrated by two Scottish sisters in their early twenties who are both struggling to find their footing in the adult world. Free spirit Anthea is trying to decide who she truly is and who she wants to be, while image-conscious Imogen is trying to fit herself into the mold of the good corporate yes-woman. Both discover, like Iphis in Ovid’s sweet, gender-fluid fairy-tale, that they’re happiest leaving society’s [gendered] expectations behind and embracing their most authentic selves. The style of writing is a kind of lyrical stream of consciousness that verges on magical realism from time to time. It has commentary on corporate greed, environmentalism, consumerism, sexism in the workplace, and, of course, gender roles. However, this book is never heavy. What makes it so good is that it’s so much fun. It’s funny, whimsical, and romantic… and the girls (and their new partners) definitely get the last laugh in the end. – Krishni Burns. Calliope's Library Logo A black and white picture of a woman wearing a laurel wreath holds a scroll that says Calliope's Library. She is wearing a draped garment and her black hair is pulled back in a bun, with a whisp escaping the wreath. Her eyes are closed and she looks content.
July 14, 2025 at 2:43 PM
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Read eleven-year-old Aoife's write-up of Kate McMullan's _Hit the Road, Helen!_ on Calliope's Library: www.calliopeslibrary.org/hit-the-road...
Hit the Road, Helen! by Kate McMullan. Title: Hit the Road, Helen! Author: Kate McMullan. Date: 2015. Series: Myth-o-Mania, book 9. Tags: Chapter book, Novel, Mythology, Troy, Helen of Troy, Ancient worlds, English. Readers interested in a scholarly approach to children’s literature may consult this title on Our Mythical Childhood Survey.* Hit the Road Helen is told from Hades' point of view, and it's about how Zeus lied about the story of Helen of Troy. Zeus has his writer nymphs change the story so he looks brave, super strong, and cool, but he's actually a scaredy god. In this book, Hades is going to set the story right. We've heard the story of Helen. She was the most beautiful person in the world, and Aphrodite promised that she would give Paris the most beautiful woman in the world if he gave Aphrodite the golden apple. Helen was married to Menelaus, but Aphrodite made Cupid shoot Helen with the smoochy-woochy arrow. Helen falls in love with Paris and goes to Troy. At the end of the war, Zeus blames the war all on Helen. Hades knows that's not true. It's actually Zeus and Eris' fault because Zeus is a myth-o-maniac, which is old Greek-speak for a big fat liar. This book is really funny, and it’s full of cool details for lovers of Greek myths. There's a great moment when the ghosts of the soldiers who died in the Trojan War tell their stories and they cheer when they hear stories of someone from the other side dying. For people who don't like war, this might not be the book for you, but if you like hearing a twist on Greek mythology, I highly recommend Hit the Road Helen. –Aoife (age 11). Calliope's Library Logo A black and white picture of a woman wearing a laurel wreath holds a scroll that says Calliope's Library. She is wearing a draped garment and her black hair is pulled back in a bun, with a whisp escaping the wreath. Her eyes are closed and she looks content.
May 25, 2025 at 7:24 PM
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Read Deborah Roberts' write-up of Jeanne Bendick's _Herodotus and the Road to History_ on Calliope's Library: www.calliopeslibrary.org/herodotus-an...
Cover of Herodotus and the Road to History. Title: Herodotus and the Road to History. Author and Illustrator: Jeanne Bendick. Date: 2009. Tags: Middle Grade, Nonfiction, ebook, Ancient Civilization, Ancient Greece, Ancient history, Biography, Ancient worlds, English. Jeanne Bendick’s book, with pictures and maps by the author, recounts the life of the Greek historian Herodotus, with Herodotus himself as narrator; this fictional biography is based on information drawn primarily from Herodotus’s own Histories. After a look at Herodotus’s birthplace, Halicarnassus, a Greek city-state on the coast of what is now Turkey, we learn what his childhood might have been like; the rest of the book is largely devoted to his extensive travels to the places he wrote about (including Babylon, Egypt and Athens) but also includes brief accounts of the wars between Greece and Persia, including the main battles. Bendick provides a glossary of important names (with their pronunciations) and tells the reader what modern place names correspond to ancient ones. – Deborah Roberts. Calliope's Library Logo A black and white picture of a woman wearing a laurel wreath holds a scroll that says Calliope's Library. She is wearing a draped garment and her black hair is pulled back in a bun, with a whisp escaping the wreath. Her eyes are closed and she looks content.
May 13, 2025 at 4:40 PM
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Read Rebecca Resinski's write-up of Elle McNicoll's _Show Us Who You Are_ on Calliope's Library: www.calliopeslibrary.org/show-us-who-...
Cover of Show Us Who You Are. Title: Show Us Who You Are. Author: Elle McNicoll. Date: 2022. Tags: Middle Grade, Novel, Ebook, Audiobook, Mythology, Hades and Persephone, 21st century worlds, Female lead, Lead with Autism, Neurodiverse, English. Twelve-year-old Cora is autistic. Her friend Aiden has ADHD. When a car accident leaves Aiden in a coma, the company run by Aiden’s father gives Cora the opportunity to interact with a holographic digital clone of her friend. While the seeming replica provides some comfort at first, Cora comes to realize that behaviors related to Aiden’s ADHD have been removed from the digital version. She learns too that the company’s interest in her stems from her autism: they are studying Cora so that they can figure out how to “correct” the clones of neurodiverse people, making them “normal.” Throughout Show Us Who You Are, there are clear points of contact between the novel and the myth of Persephone and Hades. The noun “Cora” is a version of “Kore,” which means “Maiden” and serves as an alternative name for Persephone. Aiden’s name echoes Hades’, and his dog Cerby recalls Cerberus. The cloning company is called the Pomegranate Institute. At other moments, however, Show Us Who You Are upends narrative expectations we might have based on our own knowledge of the Greek myth. And that seems to me to be part of the program. Show Us Who You Are is an explicit anthem for neurodiversity; it may also be an implicit manifesto for the creative transformation of traditional stories. Why should retellings be “normal?” What might we see, learn, or think about if we break them out of their inherited patterns? How does continued adherence to expected or “normal” patterns limit not only stories but ourselves as well? – Rebecca Resinski.
May 9, 2025 at 6:33 PM
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Read Krzysztof Rybak's write-up of Greek Myths and Mazes (Ariadne’s Thread: Myths and Labyrinths/Nić Ariadny. Mity i Labirynty) on Calliope's Library: www.calliopeslibrary.org/greek-myths-...
Cover of Greek Myths and Mazes (Ariadne’s Thread: Myths and Labyrinths/Nić Ariadny. Mity i Labirynty). Title: Greek Myths and Mazes (Ariadne’s Thread: Myths and Labyrinths/Nić Ariadny. Mity i Labirynty) Author and Illustrator: Jan Bajtlik English Translator: Zosia Krasodomska-Jones Year: 2019 Tags: 7+, The Odyssey, Picture Books, Ancient Civ, Greece, Greco-Roman Mythology, Setting: Ancient, Award winner: Polish Section of the International Board on Books for Young People “Book of the Year” award nominee, Interactive, Original Language: Polish “Nić Ariadny: Mity i Labirynty”. Readers interested in a scholarly approach to children’s literature may consult this title on Our Mythical Childhood Survey* “Greek Myths and Mazes” is the result of many months of research conducted at museums and other institutions all around the world by Jan Bajtlik, a Polish illustrator, author, and designer. His 2019 book is a mix of different genres, including informational picture book, wimmelbook (a collection of detailed panoramic images with very few words), and an activity book. Later pages present selected scenes from Greek mythology and history, such as the Twelve Labors of Hercules, the Labyrinth, the palace of Knossos, the ship Argo, the Trojan War, the trials of Odysseus, the Olympic games, and the Acropolis of Athens, and many other scenes, stories, places, and myths. In the second part of the book, you can find detailed explanations of all the illustrations: they are historically correct (Bajtlik consulted with Prof. Marek Węcowski from the Institute of History at the University of Warsaw, Poland), and include several important idioms, such as Achilles’ heel, Pandora’s box, Sisyphean labor or deus ex machina. The artistry and hard work of the author are visible; it’s no surprise then that Bajtlik was nominated for the Polish Section of IBBY “Book of the Year” award in the graphic category. Attention to details (often reproduced, reconfigured, or stylized classical works of art), the overwhelming crowed spreads, a wide range of themes, and the woven mazes to thread – all this makes “Greek Myths and Mazes” a great picture book to introduce the secrets of the ancient world, still present in contemporary culture and art. -- Krzysztof Rybak.
May 5, 2025 at 9:37 PM
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Did you know you can write up an already written title?! Read Krishni Burns' & Carolivia Herron's write-ups of Worku L. Mulat's & Ellenore & Leyla Angelidis' _Andromeda, Princess of Ethiopia: The Legend in The Stars in Amharic & English_ on Calliope's Library www.calliopeslibrary.org/andromeda-pr...
Cover of Andromeda, Princess of Ethiopia in English and Amharic. Title: Andromeda, Princess of Ethiopia: The Legend in The Stars in Amharic and English. Authors: Worku L. Mulat, Ellenore Angelidis, Leyla Angelidis. Illustrator: Daniel Getahun. Date: 2021. Tags: Preschool, Picture book, Mythology, Andromeda, Perseus, Ancient worlds, Female lead, Black lead, Racially/Ethnically diverse, English, Amharic. It has always bothered me that today Andromeda is invariably white and blonde when she appears in books and movies even though the ancient stories about her generally agree that she was the princess of Aethiopia, a kingdom in Africa south of Egypt. That’s why I was thrilled to come across this book. Andromeda, Princess of Ethiopia gives an accurate version of the Greek myth about Andromeda’s rescue from her point of view, leaving out any mention of Perseus’quest to kill Medusa. If the choice is limiting, it does provide a nice romantic story for preschoolers who aren’t into severed heads yet. Instead, the book focuses on placing Andromeda within an Ethiopian context, citing other references to Ethiopia in Greek literature, and connecting Ethiopians to the wider Mediterranean world. I particularly like that the book starts with humanity’s early history in the region, then uses the story of Andromeda to connect Ethiopia to modern day astronomy and space exploration. The target audience for this book are Amharic speaking children in East Africa and around the world, so the text is in both English and Amharic on every page. I can’t vouch for the Amharic translation, but the translator, Alem Eshetu Beyene, is a native speaker with impressive credentials who is deeply involved in the promotion of youth literature. Even for readers like me who don’t know any Amharic, it is a great pleasure to see both languages on the page. It reinforces the main theme of this book, connection: across time, across cultures, and across the universe. – Krishni Burns. Worku L. Mulat’s Andromeda, Princess of Ethiopia, beautifully retains the Ethiopian foundation that has often been overlooked in this mythological story of the stars. In a recent visit to the local planetarium, I heard Greece and Rome mentioned over and over again – but Ethiopia was not mentioned once, even though Andromeda and her parents, Cassiopeia and Cepheus, all Ethiopians, were mentioned often in descriptions of the constellations. Dr. Worku tells Andromeda’s story with art, clarity and forbearance celebrating the Ethiopian root of the story without rancor. I first learned of Andromeda and her mother Cassiopeia’s story when reading Milton’s “Il Penseroso” as a teenager . . . “ . . . that starr’d Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty’s praise above The sea nymphs” That’s what Dr. Worku and his collaborators, Ellenore and Leyla Angelidis, along with illustrator Daniel Getahum, give us, Black and beautiful, a human myth of Ethiopia and the stars. – Carolivia Herron.
May 3, 2025 at 12:09 AM
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Read Rebecca Resinski's write-up of Christopher Myers' _Wings_ on Calliope's Library: www.calliopeslibrary.org/wings
Cover of Wings. Author and Illustrator: Christopher Myers. Date: 2000. Tags: Picture book, 21st century worlds, Black lead, Racially/Ethnically diverse, Icarus. Readers interested in a scholarly approach to children’s literature may consult this title on Our Mythical Childhood Survey. In Christopher Myers’ Wings a young girl recounts the harassment which a winged boy named Ikarus Jackson experiences from schoolmates, teachers, neighborhood kids, and police. When the narrator summons her voice to oppose the boy’s antagonists and celebrate his difference, they both feel freed. Myers’ invocation of Ikarus challenges and revises its classical precedent. The wings of Myers’ modern Ikarus are intrinsic; they haven’t been crafted by his father, and they aren’t the unwitting means to an unfortunate end. Buoyed by the support of the girl-narrator, Ikarus Jackson’s wings become an expression of full, soaring self, and Myers’ picture book becomes a recuperative reception of ancient myth. The medium of collage connects Myers’ book to a distinguished African American artistic tradition and suggests that we both make and are made from what our world provides. Wings acknowledges the material, social, and historical constraints by which we are circumscribed but also prompts us to discover within those constraints possibilities for active reassemblage and hopeful, restorative transformation. – Rebecca Resinski. For further information on the Our Mythical Childhood Survey, please refer to the website of the project “Our Mythical Childhood” [link: http://omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl/], led by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales,” University of Warsaw, Poland, with the participation of Bar Ilan University, University of New England, University of Roehampton, University of Yaoundé 1, and other affiliated scholars, within the funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement No 681202).
April 28, 2025 at 3:55 PM
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a woman says i don t know her in a purple background
Alt: Mariah Carey "I don't know her" meme.
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April 28, 2025 at 3:40 PM
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Read Krishni Burns' write-up of the _Cleopatra in Space_ on Calliope's Library: www.calliopeslibrary.org/cleopatra-in...
Cover of Cleopatra in Space. Title: Cleopatra in Space: Target Practice (v1), The Thief and the Sword (v2), Secret of the Time Tablets (v3), The Golden Lion (v4), Fallen Empires (v5), Queen of the Nile (v6). Author and Illustrator: Mike Maihack. Date: 2014-2020 Tags: 10+, Middle Grade, Graphic Novel, Setting: Future, Protagonist: Female, Racial/Ethnically Diverse Character(s), Neurodiverse Character(s). The title says it all, really. Cleopatra VII, the future Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt, is transported light years into the future to a galaxy far, far away on her fifteenth birthday. She is supposedly there to fulfil a prophecy to save the universe from the invading forces of the evil emperor Xaius Octavian. That doesn’t get her out of school, and she enrolls in Yasiro Academy. For much of the series, Cleopatra tries to balance daring missions in enemy territory with adjusting to school life in the 30,000th century. The art style is fantastic, full of color and movement, particularly during the elaborate, fast-paced action sequences. It will appeal to fans of Raina Telgemeier’s Drama and Ghosts. Cleo is fun, spunky, and relatable, especially when she struggles to focus on schoolwork with a whole new universe to explore. Mike Maihack has revealed in a tweet that he wrote Cleopatra as having ADHD. She had found her life as an Egyptian princess frustrating and restrictive, and she loves the freedom that she gets in her new time, even as she adapts to a strange world filled with aliens, talking cats, ray guns, and electricity. However, Cleopatra also feels the pressures of her situation, and it takes a toll. Over the series, she develops some depression as the war moves ever closer to her new home. Like the Harry Potter books, this series takes a dark turn, and the characters are forced to face the realities of a galaxy at war. Many characters die, and almost everyone becomes a refugee at some point in the story. Ironically, the fact that Cleopatra is a historical character keep the series from getting too dark. As bad as things look, readers can be confident that Cleopatra will be back in ancient Egypt by the time she’s seventeen to meet Julius Caesar for the first time. That said, there’s very little about history in this series. It’s a fun space opera filled with clever ancient Egyptian cultural references and interesting riffs on Egyptian religion. – Krishni Burns.
April 25, 2025 at 4:37 PM
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Read Sarah Klitenic Wear's write-up of the Tunbergs' _Cattus Petasatus: The Cat in the Hat in Latin_ on Calliope's Library: www.calliopeslibrary.org/cattus-petas...
Cover of Cattus Petasatus: The Cat in the Hat in Latin. Title: Cattus Petasatus: The Cat in the Hat in Latin Author and Illustrator: Dr. Seuss Translators: Jennifer Morrish Tunberg and Terence Tunberg Year: 2000 [1957] Tags: 6+, Picture Book, Books in Latin, Setting: Contemporary(?), Protagonist: Animal, Read Aloud. This brilliant Latin translation of Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat conveys the whimsy of the original text, enhanced by the same illustrations and page and font design as the English edition. What makes this translation a stroke of genius is that the Tunbergs effectively duplicate Dr. Seuss’s rhythm and rhyme, which appears in alternate lines. The Latin translation makes use of a trochaic rhythm (eight-syllable lines) with an end-rhyme in the last two syllables (a verse scheme used, for instance, by Thomas Aquinas’s hymns.) The result of this thoughtful composition is a translation that will immediately seem familiar to the reader or, better yet, the listener. Reading this book aloud makes young and old break out into smiles of delight. What a source of joy! This book introduces young children to Latin as a living language. For students of Latin, the book is a fun text to translate because the story is familiar. At the end of the book appears a helpful Latin-English glossary. As an achievement in Latin composition, Cattus Petasatus inspires the young Latinist to consider the art of Latin composition, particularly verse composition. One also gains an appreciation for the technique of translation as an art in itself. - Sarah Klitenic Wear.
April 4, 2025 at 4:48 PM
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Read Ruth Scodel's write-up of Caroline Dale Snedecker's _The White Isle_ on Calliope's Library: www.calliopeslibrary.org/the-white-isle
The White Isle by Caroline Dale Snedecker. Title: The White Isle Author: Caroline Dale Snedecker Date: 1940 Tags: 10+, Middle Grade, Rome, Roman Britain, Setting: Ancient, Protagonist: Female. Caroline Dale Snedecker’s The White Isle (1940) tells the story of an elite (but homely) girl of barely marriageable age whose father is sent as a legate to Britain because he out of favor with Hadrian. Despite her dismay at the move, she comes to love Britain and to appreciate the greater freedom of her life away from Rome. She eventually becomes a Christian and marries a Christian, but the book is not heavy-handed with religiosity, and although it is old-fashioned, its portrayal of the world of such a young woman is at once sympathetic and thought-provoking. For middle-schoolers. – Ruth Scodel. Calliope's Library Logo A black and white picture of a woman wearing a laurel wreath holds a scroll that say's Calliope's Library. She is wearing a draped garment and her black hair is pulled back in a bun, with a whisp escaping the wreath. Her eyes are closed and she looks content.
March 27, 2025 at 9:00 PM