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Showing 176 entries for tag: Identity

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Jane Bingham , Robin Lawrie, Anne Millard

Alexander the Great

This title introduces young readers to biography and history, with elements of geography and politics, in a title that also encourages developing literacy through the use of fairly complex vocabulary and delivery in a relatively lengthy volume. The format is birth to death, following the traditions of biography. A map of Alexander's empire opens the work and orientates the reader, and this is followed by ten chapters on Alexander's life, in which text and image are interspersed; most pag(...)

literary

YEAR: 2004

COUNTRY: United Kingdom


Nikos Kazantzakis

Alexander the Great / In the Time of Alexander the Great [Μέγας Αλέξανδρος / Στα χρόνια του Μεγαλέξανδρου (Mégas Aléxandros / Sta chrónia tou Megaléxandrou)]

The novel covers Alexander the Great’s life, beginning with his famous taming of the wild horse Bucephalas at fifteen and ending with his death in Babylon in 323 BCE. The novel focuses primarily on Alexander’s twin ambitions, to unite Greece and to conquer Asia and how he made them a reality. He shared these aspirations with his father Philip II of Macedon, who is an important character in the early part of the book. This covers Alexander’s early life at his father’s cour(...)

literary

YEAR: 1940

COUNTRY: Greece


Chris Capstick , Monika Filipina

Alexander the Great Dane

This light-hearted story is set in an ancient Egypt ruled by giant cats. The giant cats unfairly favour the normal-sized cats, leaving dogs to do all the work. This injustice has persisted for generations, until "a young pup called Alexander" left his care-free youth behind him to enter a world of toil and decided to lead the dogs in throwing off the shackles of their oppressors. True to the genre of books for young children, Alexander asks dogs of various occupations for their views o(...)

literary

YEAR: 2017

COUNTRY: United Kingdom


Jamila Gavin, David Parkins

Alexander the Great. Man, Myth, or Monster?

Alexander the Great. Man, Myth, or Monster? introduces young readers to ancient history via biography. The birth to death format follows the traditions of biography, while the narrative also moves forward and backwards in parts, with the narrator recalling previous events or anticipating events that will occur later. The story is punctuated by mythic tales which are introduced as if being told to soldiers in the story. These embedded myths are well chosen to reflect what is happening in the main(...)

literary

YEAR: 2011

COUNTRY: United Kingdom


Joe Lillington, Iris Volant

Ancient Warriors

Ancient Warriors is divided as follows: overview of specific armies; short biographies of military leaders; overviews of battles throughout history. The book covers the Bronze Age until the 14th Century CE and features armies such as the Mayans (pp. 12–13), the Romans (pp. 24–28), the Huns (pp. 34–35), the Vikings (pp. 42–43), and the Samurai (pp. 50–51). These armies are arranged chronologically and are described along with their respective military leaders such as(...)

literary

YEAR: 2018

COUNTRY: United Kingdom


Joe Caramagna, Travel Foreman, Derek Fridolfs, Len O'Grady, Michael Avon Oeming

Ares. God of War

Part 1. Ares opens with a repeat of the cover image in which a Mohican-haired Ares looks down reflectively amidst a battlefield strewn with bodies. The opening text quotes Zeus in Homer's Iliad declaring Ares the most hateful of the gods. A second scene of devastation accompanies Ares' account of how the other gods called on him long ago to halt Hades' attack on Olympus. He recalls that even as Hades' hellish demons swarmed about them Hercules discouraged Zeus' appeal to(...)

literary

YEAR: 2006

COUNTRY: United States of America


Christophe Chaffardon

Aristarchos' Manuscript [Le manuscrit d’Aristarque]

The action takes place in the 3rd century B.C. Athens and later Alexandria in Ptolemaic Egypt. A physician practicing advanced and not yet sanctioned medicine is forced to flee Athens with his daughter Ophelia as stowaways on a small ship going to Alexandria. He dies suddenly, having been poisoned when the ship reaches its destination. Before he dies he manages to tell his daughter to look for a certain Aristarchus, who turns out to have been a revolutionary astronomer who believed that the Eart(...)

literary

YEAR: 2016

COUNTRY: France


Hugo Pratt

Corto Maltese. The Golden House of Samarkand (Corto Maltese, 7)

The Maltese adventures typically involve a mission to locate an item of some sort within a challenging environment. In this, the seventh instalment in the series, Corto has heard tell of a manuscript by Lord George Byron the poet which Byron's friend, Edward Trelawny, hid on the island of Rhodes. Corto is on Rhodes to retrieve the manuscript. He locates it without too much difficulty and it contains a map to the "Great Gold" - the treasure of Alexander the Great, which is in the Go(...)

literary

YEAR: 1974

COUNTRY: France Italy


Yan Marchand, Vincent Sorel

Diogenes the Dog-Man [Diogène l’homme chien]

The plot is based on an anecdote from Diogenes’ life, briefly told by Diogenes Laertius in Lives of Eminent Philosophers (VI.2.75–76). Young Androsthène, the son of a wealthy Aegina citizen, is sent to Athens to complete his formation by educating his soul. His father chooses Plato as the mentor in philosophy. The young man, reluctantly, and for a long time, studies Euclidean geometry to enter the Academy. The city captivates him with its luxury. The encounter with Diogen(...)

literary

YEAR: 2012

COUNTRY: France


Imogen Greenberg , Isabel Greenberg

Discover… The Ancient Greeks

Discover...  began in 2016. It is part of a series offering a light-hearted introduction to a range of ancient cultures, including The Roman Empire, The Ancient Aztecs, and The Ancient Egyptians.Discover... The Ancient Greeks opens with the stated intention of exploring who the ancient Greeks really were. The book is divided into 2-page sub-sections, each discussing a different aspect of ancient Greek culture.(...)

literary

YEAR: 2017

COUNTRY: United States of America


Orson Scott Card

Ender’s Game

Six-year old boy genius Ender (Andrew) Wiggin is selected for training at the Battle School. An elite force of soldiers is needed to protect humanity from invasion by an alien force, named the ‘Buggers,’ for their resemblance to insects. Ender’s intelligence includes an awareness of his light and dark sides, symbolised externally by his empathic sister, Valentine, and his sociopathic brother, Peter (both of whom have been rejected by the School). As he undergoes his training, E(...)

literary

YEAR: 1985

COUNTRY: United States of America


Jan Parandowski

From the Ancient World [Z antycznego świata]

Based on: Katarzyna Marciniak, Elżbieta Olechowska, Joanna Kłos, Michał Kucharski (eds.), Polish Literature for Children & Young Adults Inspired by Classical Antiquity: A Catalogue, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2013, 444 pp. This is a collection of short, varied essays introducing young readers to the fascinating world of Antiquity. Topics are very diverse, ranging from archaeology, Greek art, culture, architecture, history, and the Roman Empir(...)

literary

YEAR: 1958

COUNTRY: Poland


Antoni Boratyński, Maria Kann

Heaven of Heroes and Gods. Literary Expeditions into Space — Part I [Niebo herosów i bogów. Literackie wyprawy w kosmos — Część 1]

Based on: Katarzyna Marciniak, Elżbieta Olechowska, Joanna Kłos, Michał Kucharski (eds.), Polish Literature for Children & Young Adults Inspired by Classical Antiquity: A Catalogue (accessed: June 11, 2021), Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2013, 444 pp.This story uses the oldest myths, legends and poems about the eternal human dream of flying. The author uses several ancient sources, such as Sumerian mythology, the Greek myth about Daedalus and Icarus,(...)

literary

YEAR: 1975

COUNTRY: Poland


Ryan Madison

Hercules’ First Six Tasks: Short Stories Teens to Young Adult

In this installment we have a part of Hercules’ adventures mixed with other historical figures such as Alexander the Great. There is no decisive chronological development for the narrative. Hercules receives different tasks from Zeus and on the way he meets all kind of people, such as the mysterious King Phillip, the king of his home-land; he also meets Helen and Alexander, and Oedipus’ family.(...)

literary

YEAR: 2013

COUNTRY: Australia


Dominic Brigstocke, Steve Connelly, William Terence Deary, Chloë Thomas

Horrible Histories (Series)

A sketch show based on the books of the same name by Terry Deary, focussing on many aspects of history not just the Classical areas. Each episode includes parodic songs teaching children about aspects of history, with both live-action and animated sections often working in conjecture to form the full picture of the sketch. Each sketch is accompanied by the narrative character Rattus Rattus who is used as an accuracy marker for the jokes within the series. The show takes a non-linear format (...)

audiovisual

YEAR: 2009

COUNTRY: United Kingdom


Martin Brown , William Terence Deary

Horrible Histories. The Groovy Greeks

A humorous overview of the mythology and history of Ancient Greece. After an introduction to Greek "gruesome gods" and "petrifying plays and electrifying epics", Deary zooms in on the "savage Spartans" and the "odd Athenians". He then summarises the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, before giving an entertaining account of the life and deeds of "Alexander the Great-er". The following chapters describe how Ancient Greeks thought, lived, and died, wi(...)

literary

YEAR: 1995

COUNTRY: United Kingdom


Kalliope Kyrdi, Evi Pini

Icarus Tells Stories about Statues in the National Archaeological Museum [Ο Ίκαρος αφηγείται ιστορίες για αγάλματα στο Εθνικό Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο (O Íkaros afīgeítai istoríes gia agálmata sto Ethnikó Archaiologikó Mouseío)]

A talking animal, a duck called Icarus, takes us through the galleries with sculpture at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Icarus shows us statues of males, females, and animals (as we notice also on the front cover), prompting us to pay attention to their style, meaning, and material.The value of experiential learning is emphasised in the introduction (page 3), so that teachers and parents can prepare for the museum visit. Throughout the book, Evi Pini and Kalliopi Kyrdi address bot(...)

literary

YEAR: 2008

COUNTRY: Greece


Marisa De Castro

Let’s go to Nafplio [Πάμε στο Ναύπλιο; (Páme sto Náfplio?)]

The book starts with an illustration of a typical nuclear family in a car. The mother in the front, father at the wheel, and the daughter son at the back. The mother and son’s red-blond hair could imply a family of foreign visitors to Greece, driving to Nafplio from other Greek cities. Subsequently, we see a simplified map of the Peloponnese and southern central Greece, dotted with places of interest, such as the Corinth Canal. Nemea is marked with a drawing of a man, presumably Her(...)

literary

YEAR: 2009

COUNTRY: Greece


Albert Barillé

Once Upon a Time... The Discoverers (Series, S01E03): Heron of Alexandria [Il était une fois… les Découvreurs: Héron d’Alexandrie]

Héron d’Alexandrie is the third episode of the series about discoverers entitled Il était une fois… It presents in a way, suitable for children, the achievements of ancient Alexandrian science, in particular the character of Heron of Alexandria, against a historical and cultural background. The structure corresponds to the template used in all of the episodes in the series: the white-bearded old Maestro narrates tales of important inventions from the past to a group of(...)

audiovisual

YEAR: 1994

COUNTRY: France


Philippe Lagautrière, Michel Piquemal

Philo-Fables. 60 Fables with Questions, Points and Keywords [Les Philo-Fables. 60 Fables accompagnées de questions, de repères et de mots-clés]

A collection of fables and tales from European philosophy, mythology, Eastern wisdom, popular tradition of many countries. All stories are similarly structured. Each fable is followed by an indication of source and then by a modern explanation of the moral entitled In the Philosopher’s Workshop (Dans l’atelier du philosophe). The key-words for each story are placed on the upper margin. Words considered difficult for the child reader are explained in footnotes, e. g. *Parabole: p(...)

literary

YEAR: 2003

COUNTRY: France


Kornel Makuszyński , Zbigniew Piotrowski

Satan from the Seventh Grade [Szatan z siódmej klasy]

Based on: Katarzyna Marciniak, Elżbieta Olechowska, Joanna Kłos, Michał Kucharski (eds.), Polish Literature for Children & Young Adults Inspired by Classical Antiquity: A Catalogue, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2013, 444 pp.Professor Gąsowski is shocked when he discovers that his students have known for a long time his scheme for questioning them during class. It turns out that it was deciphered by Adam Cisowski – a brilliant student with a sp(...)

literary

YEAR: 1937

COUNTRY: Poland


Jerzy Flisak, Anna M. Komornicka

Stories Not from This World [Historie nie z tej ziemi]

Based on: Katarzyna Marciniak, Elżbieta Olechowska, Joanna Kłos, Michał Kucharski (eds.), Polish Literature for Children & Young Adults Inspired by Classical Antiquity: A Catalogue (accessed: June 11, 2021), Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2013, 444 pp., section by Elżbieta Olechowska and Olga Grabarek, pp. 128–131. This is the first volume in the series The Legacy of Antiquity. The heroes of the book are siblings: Krzyś, Stefanek and Elżbie(...)

literary

YEAR: 1987

COUNTRY: Poland


Mary Renault

The Lion in the Gateway. The Heroic Battles of the Greeks and Persians at Marathon, Salamis, and Thermopylae

Ch. I. The Arrow of Ormuz. The Lion opens with a description of the mountainous Greek landscape. We hear of boys guarding flocks from wolves and the presence of many more dangers from pirates and raiders. Many Greeks seek land through colonisation, with many going east to settle Ionia. The ancient Greek disposition is described – an independent spirit that rejects kings in favour of oligarchies and democracies, inquiring minds which ask questions and seek answers about all manner of things(...)

literary

YEAR: 1964

COUNTRY: United Kingdom


Cynthia Voigt

The Runner (Tillerman Cycle, 4)

The Runner is a prequel to the other Tillerman books (reviewed elsewhere in this survey). Set in 1967–1968, the novel focuses on Samuel ‘Bullet’ Tillerman in his final year at high school before signing up to go and fight in the Vietnam War. His siblings have already left the family home, leaving Bullet alone to deal with his abusive father and downtrodden mother, Abigail. At his recently desegregated school, Bullet, himself bigoted against black people, largely ignores ra(...)

literary

YEAR: 1985

COUNTRY: United States of America


Jerzy Flisak, Anna M. Komornicka

The Thread of Ariadne, or Finding Your Way [Nić Ariadny, czyli po nitce do kłębka]

Based on: Katarzyna Marciniak, Elżbieta Olechowska, Joanna Kłos, Michał Kucharski (eds.), Polish Literature for Children & Young Adults Inspired by Classical Antiquity: A Catalogue, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2013, 444 pp.This is the second volume in the series The Legacy of Antiquity, based on radio programs and plays for children, where the author explains phrases, sayings, and expressions originating from Greek myths, such as “the su(...)

literary

YEAR: 1989

COUNTRY: Poland


Cynthia Voigt

The Tillerman Cycle (Series)

The Tillerman Cycle follows the lives of four siblings – Dicey, James, Maybeth and Sammy Tillerman – abandoned by their parents and in search of a new home. Over the course of seven novels, spanning nearly a decade in the children’s lives, Voigt explores themes of family, home, resilience, and the relationship between individuals and society. Brief summaries of the novels are included below; for more detailed summaries, see the individual entries elsewhere in the OMC survey.Hom(...)

literary

YEAR: 1981

COUNTRY: United States of America


Natalia Kapatsoulia, Filippos Mandilaras

Thessaloniki – Town at the Crossroads of Two Worlds [Θεσσαλονίκη, πόλη στο σταυροδρόμι δύο κόσμων (Thessaloníkī, pólī sto stavrodrómi dýo kósmōn)]

The book starts by mentioning the different peoples that have lived in Thessaloniki. The city is said to have been named by Cassander, one of Alexander the Great’s successors, after Alexander’s sister, who was a mermaid. Cassander founded Thessaloniki as a great trading port. The Romans built a road that connected East with West, as well as palaces and arches. Later, we are told, when Constantinople became a capital city, Thessaloniki served as a co-capital city. Thessaloniki was bes(...)

literary

YEAR: 2018

COUNTRY: Greece


Andrew Thomson, Kathryn Waterfield , Robin Waterfield

Who Was Alexander the Great?

Introduction: Who Was Alexander the Great? begins the work with a novelistic retelling of Alexander's taming of Bucephalus, written in the present tense. King Philip says that Alexander needs a kingdom bigger than Macedon and Alexander goes on to conquer the known world in just 13 years, "No wonder he becomes known as Alexander the Great!" (p. 6). The Son of his Father. A map of Greece and Macedon can be seen at the beginning of chapter 1. It is explained that Alexander was bo(...)

literary

YEAR: 2016

COUNTRY: United States of America