An expertly crafted rendition and a welcome invitation to younger readers to immerse themselves in the ancient past.
“Sing to me, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles”: a rousing graphic rendition of Homer’s great epic.
It’s a blood-soaked poem of primeval war, one ostensibly fought over a certain daughter of Zeus who turned the wrong head—“Or possibly an apple, or a lot of gold, or control of trade routes”—that brought vast armies to the plains of Troy. In a fight personified by two heroes, Trojan Hector and Greek Achilles, there’s more than a little graphic violence here—but nothing other than what Homer himself described, as when Achilles’ spear finds Hector’s neck, followed by Achilles’ intemperate curse: “Your corpse goes to the dogs.” That’s not very sporting, and of course Achilles gets his comeuppance. Hinds allows that his version is not complete, but all the best bits are there, and he provides some helpful interpretive hints—identifying the principal helmeted Greek and Trojan warriors with subtle alphabetical designs on their breastplates, for instance. The best graphic panels are the ones that show the war’s vastness, with a two-page spread of those famed thousand ships crossing the Hellespont, another panel showing the Greek army spilling out onto the plain, “like the great flock of migrating birds that take wing in the meadows by the stream of Caÿster—as numerous as the leaves of a forest.” An author’s note and page-by-page notes provide further context.
An expertly crafted rendition and a welcome invitation to younger readers to immerse themselves in the ancient past. (map, bibliography) (Graphic adaptation. 10-adult)Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8113-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
The scent of sorcery is sharp and sweet, like basil, and Hannah knows it well. She hears the voices of the magpie, the badger, and the three foxlets who follow her, but she does not know anything of her past, or why the townsfolk fear her even as they come for her charms and cures, or why the wizard deep in the Tanglewood demands, each month, a draught made from the leaves and flowers that blossom in her hair. When a beauteous young knight comes on a quest, searching for his queen’s greatest treasure, Hannah pins a lily from her hair to his breast and hopes he will survive. She names him Foxkith and later finds him wounded, but the wizard turns him to a fox before her eyes, and robs him of speech. Then Hannah leaves the place she knows, with her companion animals, in search of what will bring her Foxkith back to her. It’s hard for her to notice that once she leaves Tanglewood, lush greenery springs up from what falls from her hair, then the gold of summer, and the russet of harvest, as she travels the land and brings the seasons back. Finely wrought and passionately imagined, it’s a tapestry of words to hold the author’s themes: the awakening of desire; the longing to know one’s origins and one’s place; the cherishing and defense of loved ones. A treasure indeed. (Fantasy. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-89247-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
LGBTQ teens do need to see themselves represented positively; it's a shame more of them won't here.
A mixed bag of stories about LGBTQ teens with a few serious omissions and misrepresentations.
Ambitiously, the editor believes this book will stop LGBTQ teens from feeling alone, and in the anthology's short introduction, he encourages queer teens to speak out and straight teens to listen. To this end, most of the stories in the collection show LGBTQ teens who are proud of their gender or sexual orientation and stand up for themselves or for something they believe in. In Alex Jeffers' standout “Captain of the World,” a gay, Turkish Muslim goalie fights back against both racial and sexual harassment on the soccer field. In Berman's fantastical “Only Lost Boys Are Found,” an unnamed hero quests his way through a half-cartoon, half-dream sequence to rescue the boy he loves. Other stories, however, fall flatter, including the well-intentioned but poorly executed “All Gender U,” whose trans protagonist (the only one in the collection) reads more as a hodgepodge of outsider assumptions about trans people than as a person in her own right. While some diversity is represented among the stories—hometowns small and large, a variety of faiths—the majority of protagonists are still white and male.
LGBTQ teens do need to see themselves represented positively; it's a shame more of them won't here. (Short stories. 12 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60282-566-6
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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