Greeky YA books

It was Mark Alford who first made me really bother looking a second time at Rick Riordan’s uber-popular Greek myth inspired Percy Jackson series. After I read it and started getting inundated with emails from kids hoping they were really demigods, I realized that it appeared to a lot of people that Riordan was doing something unusual. But honestly, there are lots of people who take Greek myths as their jump off for YA novels. Here’s a few:

• Nobody’s Princess by Esther M. Friesner (about Helen of Troy)
• Quiver by Stephanie Spinner (about Atalanta)
• Medusa Jones by Ross Collins (about, duh, Medusa)
• The Courtesan’s Daughter by Priscilla Galloway (about the infamous ancient Greek courtesan Neaira, more historical than mythic, but close enough)
• The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner starting with The Thief (the world is based off of Ancient Greece and the myths are loosely inspired by Ancient Greek myths)
• The Young Heroes series (they are stand-alone books) by Jane Yolen:
  • Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons (about Hippolyta)
  • Odysseus in the Serpent Maze (about Odysseus)
  • Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast (about Atalanta)
  • Jason and the Gorgon’s Blood (about Jason)

Then there’s the one’s that are aimed at grown-ups, like:

• The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (which I reviewed here)
• Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin
• Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis (a retelling of the Psyche myth and one of my very favorite books ever)

My secret confession is that despite my love of YA books and my adoration of Greek mythology, I am rarely a fan of the novel adaptations. Mostly I think I’m just a grinch, which is why I hope that interested people will check out some of the ones I’ve listed above (I’m especially a fan of The Courtesan’s Daughter and The Thief), but there’s another reason too.

I really hate it when I get kids emailing me CONVINCED that Rick Riordan’s version of one god or another, or the structure of ancient Greek mythology generally is How It Worked. I don’t mind them getting the myths wrong or misunderstanding the various deities (much), because, honestly, who’s to say? But what I really hate is the idea that gets stuck in their little brains that there is One Correct Version. And the immediate follow up question is always, “is it real?” To which I am loathe to respond “no.” But when I DON’T respond “no” I get asked what the appropriate steps to BECOME a deity are. Or, alternatively, how they can get in contact with other children of Greek gods. Which kind of makes me cringe.

Grinch, I told you. But also because what is really out there is SO much richer! It is a real live other world that no one really sees or knows about anymore that they can actually access by reading the original poems. And they can!!! They TOTALLY can. The Homeric Hymns and certain translations of the Metamorphoses are fantastic for kids! I taught them to middle schoolers with no problems at all. People don’t give kids enough credit.

What do y’all think?