by Rosemary Sutcliff
Published by Laurel-Leaf Random House Children's Books 1995
Reading Level: 7-9 grade
135 pages
Genre: traditional Literatur(Mythology)
Summary:
We start this book out with the end of the war in Troy. Everyone is heading home in their ships and Odysseus and his men go a little different way. They find themselves in the clutches of a cyclops whom they blind and escape with the loss of a few men. As the sail away Odysseus begins to gloat and the Cyclops prays to his father Poseidon the god of the sea and asks for revenge. As they sail they find a king who gives them a bag full of the winds that will take them home. So when they see their home land they accidentally open the bag and it sends their ships far away. They find themselves in many different scenarios in which they lose many men. However, at home Odysseus's wife and son are forced to find his wife a new husband as everyone believes Odysseus to be dead. However, they believe he is not so Telemachus his son goes out to find clues of his fathers existence. Back to Odysseus, he loses all his men to the monsters of the sea and the terrible perils they find themselves in. So Odysseus being the only on left washes up on the shore of Calypso's island where she falls in love with him and keeps him there for seven years. At last the gods have pit on him and make her let him go. So he is given a boat and sails off. However Poseidon sees him and crashes his boat, and he finds himself washed up on the shore of another land. The kings daughter of this land takes pity on him and they take very good care of him and once they find out he is the long lost Odysseus they give him a boat and have him sent home. However, as this happens one of the gods comes to him to tell him of all the suitors who have made his home their playground. So he is given the look of a beggar and goes about making a plan. He shows himself to a couple of his good servants and his son who help him put his plan into play. They talk his wife into having a competition for her hand, still not knowing that her husband stood right in front of her. So they have a competition, the suitor who will get her hand must string Odysseus' bow and then shoot an arrow through 12 axe heads. While the competition is going on, they secretly lock all the suitors in the house. Once all the doors are locked they arm themselves and kill all the suitors. When his wife comes down to see what has happened and he no longer looks like a beggar she cannot believe her eyes, so she tells her maid to go up stairs and move their marriage bed where Odysseus can sleep until she is sure it is really him. But this is a trick and Odysseus knows this. He says this is not possible to move their marriage bed without first cutting it out of the ground because one of the bed posts is made of a tree that grows up from the ground though the bed. This is when she knows it is Odysseus and there is great rejoicing!
My Reaction:
This book was okay. I'm not a big fan of the Odyssey. It's very interesting but I have to flinch every time someone gets their brains dashed out. Yikes! So it was good but it's not my favorite. It was a pretty good run over of the Odyssey for Jr. High kids so they can have some background of mythology.
Potential Problems:
I wouldn't have younger kids read this book, it is really graphic even though it is a toned down version of the tale. There is a lot of murder, theft, cannibalism, and any other mythology theme you can think of. These could be a little questionable for some parents so I would check with them on this book.
Recommendations:
This book could be some great ground work for mythology and history lessons in class. Jr. High would be a good place to start using this book, especially with the boys that like the gory stuff but don't want to read.
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