Philippos Mandilaras recounts Dionysos’ life and the god’s contribution to ancient and modern wine and performance culture. Mandilaras’ text is predominantly in rhyming verses, facilitating memorisation by children of pre-school age. Children can repeat after a teacher reads the text. Some text, e.g., Semele’s conversations with Hera and Zeus, appears in speech bubbles. The interactive experience of reading and performing fits Dionysos’ festive ambience that is apparent throughout the book. 

Mandilaras starts with Dionysos’ extraordinary birth from his father’s thigh, and, humorously, Natalia Kapatsoulia, the illustrator, shows Zeus sewing Dionysos into his thigh seven pages later. On the opening page, we are also told about Dionysos’ wanderings in towns and mountains and that the god gave people the vine. Both themes, about travelling and viticulture, are repeated in the book. 

At the very end, children are asked to make face masks, “like the ones the ancient Greeks used” in theatrical performances honouring Dionysos. The masks show different emotions, including joy, surprise, and anger.

The illustrator shows Dionysos dancing below a vine with hanging grapes, interestingly with his back to the reader. The fox at the vine’s root may allude to Aesop’s fable The Fox and the Grapes, as well as to a well-known proverb in modern Greek derived from that fable: "Όσα δε φτάνει η αλεπού, τα κάνει κρεμαστάρια." The fox has been popular in Greek folklore and fairy tales in recent times. The apparent conflation of mythological and modern narratives may make Dionysos’ story more familiar to children. 

Subsequent pages, too, feature traditional and modern visual motifs, which facilitate the learning of Greek mythology. Semele is shown embroidering on a porticoed veranda of her father’s palace. Zeus kneels before beautiful Semele in the same way that princes greet their princesses in fairy tales. The floating hearts, indicative of Zeus’ love, point to modern (and perhaps even digital) communication stereotypes. We see a pram with hanging toy stars and flowers adorning a building’s interior walls. Children would be acquainted with such imagery from family and kindergarten in their real lives. The stork carrying baby Dionysos points to imaginary life and, once again, to folklore tales and popular beliefs.

Typically for Greek mythology, there are plenty of surprises and reversals of fortune. These take children and other readers beyond the familiar. Zeus got angry, and “the galaxy darkened”. Vines grew around the boat’s mast, and the pirates turned into dolphins. These transformations are characteristic of Dionysos, who is always on the go. Children read about different lands, ranging from Phrygia to Aetolia, and envisage various landscape settings for Dionysos’ actions. In the open air on a green and flowered plateau, Dionysos dances in the company of a maenad, a satyr, a silenus, and another woman. These mythical creatures “from foreign places” are described as “daimons”, thus alluding to the extraordinary.

More importantly, perhaps, children discover the world of wine. Mandilaras explains the origin of the word for grape, "staphyli," which is named after king Oineas’ son, Staphylos, and cautions children about the effects of excessive wine drinking. Again, the educational use of Greek mythology becomes apparent here. Indeed, the book closes by teaching us about Dionysos’ modern relevance. Wine pertains to celebrations today, and we see young men and women seated around taverna tables raising their wine glasses. Wine, moreover, influenced theatrical production. An excellent appendix at the end of the book tells us more about ancient theatre and Dionysos and Dionysos’ followers (the satyrs, the silenus, and the maenads).

Information about the book at epbooks.gr, published 11 September 2013 (accessed: August 1, 2018).