Category: | Our Mythical Childhood Survey

Cynthia Voigt

Come A Stranger (1986) tells the story of Mina Smiths, who appears elsewhere in the Tillerman series as one of Dicey Tillerman’s few friends. The novel starts a couple of years before Mina and Dicey meet, with Mina finding out she has been awarded a scholarship to a prestigious ballet summer camp. She loves her time at the camp, despite being the only black student, and returns to her home in Crisfield, Maryland, interested only in traditionally white cultural fields (classical music,(...)

literary

YEAR: 1986

COUNTRY: United States of America

TAGS: Ancient Greek Dance Dryades

Karen Healey

Guardian of the Dead

Part One:Guardian of the Dead is a young adult urban fantasy novel about a New Zealand high school student named Ellie Spencer, who is drawn into a mythological conflict that re-enacts key aspects of Maori spirituality, and that will determine the fate of the North Island.After Ellie bumps into fellow student Mark Nolan, she begins to experience disorientation, fevers, and memory loss. She is disturbed by the serial killer on the North Island of New Zealand called The Eyelasher, who is removing (...)

literary

YEAR: 2010

COUNTRY: United States of America

TAGS: Circe Dryades Homer Naiad Orpheus Penelope Persephone Selene Underworld

Lisl Weil

Of Witches and Monsters and Wondrous Creatures

In this informational picture book, Weil takes young readers on a tour of mythical creatures from around the world. She opens by explaining the role of mythical creatures as providing answers for the things that happen that cannot be explained. "Some of these creatures were good; some were bad. Some were like animals; some were like people . . . Every country, every different group of people, had their own wicked monsters and wondrous creatures that became a part of the stories that were to(...)

literary

YEAR: 1985

COUNTRY: United States of America

TAGS: Ariadne Bacchus Cerberus Cyclops / Cyclopes Dionysus / Dionysos Dragons Dryades Heracles Hercules Minotaur Nymphs Odysseus / Ulysses Pegasus Phoenix (Bird) Sphinx Theseus Unicorn (hippos monokeras)

Pauline Baynes, Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis

Prince Caspian (The Chronicles of Narnia, 2)

Prince Caspian is the second book published in the Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. In this sequel to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the Pevensie children – Lucy, Peter, Edmund, and Susan – sit at a railway station waiting to start their new term at boarding school. Suddenly, they are unexpectedly catapulted to a desert island. After some exploration of the island, they discover that they have in fact returned to Narnia – a magical land that they discover(...)

literary

YEAR: 1951

COUNTRY: United Kingdom

TAGS: Bacchus Centaur(s) Dryades Faun Maenads Metamorphosis

Hanna Januszewska-Moszyńska

Tales of the Four Winds [Bajki o czterech wiatrach]

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.The book consists of four stories, each connected with pranks and mischief committed by one of the four winds (based on the Anemoi of classical mythology) – Boreasz [Boreas], Fawoni [Favonius], Not(...)

literary

YEAR: 1978

COUNTRY: Poland

TAGS: Boreas Dryades Eurus / Euros Notus / Notos

Ursula Dubosarsky

The Boy Who Could Fly: Eleven Plays for Children Inspired by Stories From The Metamorphoses of Ovid

Originally written as short plays for the New South Wales School Magazine, these stories are based upon a selection of myths in Ovid’s epic Metamorphoses. In Dubosarsky’s collection, she includes 11 short plays:Icarus: The Boy who could Fly – Icarus’ father, Daedalus, makes them both wings of beeswax and feathers so that they can fly back to Athens. Daedalus warns Icarus not to fly too close to the sun or the water, but to take the middle path. The boy does not liste(...)

literary

YEAR: 2017

COUNTRY: Australia

TAGS: Apollo Arachne Argos / Argus Panoptes (Giant) Ariadne Atalanta Ceres Cupid Daedalus Daphne Dryades Echo Galatea Helios Hippomenes Icarus Inachus Io Juno Jupiter Mercury Midas Minerva Minos Minotaur Narcissus Neptune Nymphs Pan Pygmalion Theseus Tmolus Venus

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

TAGS: Aeolus Alexander the Great Ancient Greek Dance Apollo Aristotle Circe Cyrus the Great Daedalus Dryades Fall of Rome Hippocratic Oath Homer Horace Icarus Lotus Eaters / Lotophagoi Nemesis Odysseus / Ulysses Odyssey Orion Penelope Persian Empire Phaethon Pleiades Polyphemus Scylla Sisyphus Trojan War Venus