An Eight-Year-Old Reads ‘The Odyssey’

12 Responses to An Eight-Year-Old Reads ‘The Odyssey’

1. DeeAnn says:

   October 14, 2012 at 6:30 am

   Funny, we just read that story last week and my 8 yr old loved it and wanted me to read more. (It was part of a world history unit) So I’m desperately trying to find a version of the Odyssey that he could understand. I may have to try and find that one!
2. Geoff Guth says:

   October 14, 2012 at 9:46 am

   You must show them O Brother, Where Art Thou, my favorite Coen brothers movie, after finishing the book (I don’t recall there being too much that was objectionable for kids in the movie, though I could be wrong). They’ll have fun picking up various episodes from the poem in the movie. I particularly liked John Goodman as the cyclops.
3. Surly says:

   October 14, 2012 at 10:24 am

   That reminds me of being about that age and being fascinated by an old book that my grandmother had around–it was a children’s book about the lives of some of the most well known Catholic saints and martyrs. The book did not shy away from describing how the martyrs died.

   I found saints endlessly fascinating when I was a kid, and I am sure that book had a lot to do with it. I bought my kids a similar book, but by the 1990′s the grisly means of doing away with Christians had been sanitized out of the books, and some of the more colorful details of how mystics would go without food, and how stigmata would appear on their hands, had also been removed.

   You guessed it–kids had no interest in the book.
4. Lulu says:

   October 14, 2012 at 12:55 pm

   I recently bought Arthur Rackham’s illustrated Ring Cycle, which I love, but I think it would be too sexy for a kid (the Rhinemaidens are cavorting about in the nude).
5. Lulu says:

   October 14, 2012 at 2:24 pm

   I want the Grisly Ends of the Saints book!
6. O.L. Johnson says:

   October 14, 2012 at 4:06 pm

   DeeAnn,

   When my son was born, I stumbled on a couple of gems at a local Barnes & Noble, entitled “The Children’s Homer: The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy” and “Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles”. Both were by an author I had never heard of, named Padraic Colum and were Illustrated by Willy Pogany.

   It turns out that Colum was an illustrious Irish poet and children’s author who, late in his career turned out a whole series of wonderful children’s book based largely on mythology and folk lore. When I bought the two books mentioned above, they had to sit on the shelf for about four years before my son was old enough to appreciate them. But it was well worth the wait.

   We have since collected a large number of Colum’s books and enjoyed everyone. The one’s with Pogany as the illustrator are especially good. That’s where my kids got their introduction to Homer and the Greek hero tales and they’ve craved such fare ever since.
7. Geoff LaForte says:

   October 14, 2012 at 4:20 pm

   “Ah, little boys.”

   Everybody loves that part where Mr. Nobody sticks it to Polyphemos. Homer takes such obvious joy in describing the sizzling sound. I’ll have to look for the comic in the US to give to my son.
8. Sharon Astyk says:

   October 15, 2012 at 11:25 am

   Thanks for pointing this out – I’m reading the Iliad now with my almost-11 year old and we have included the two younger (almost 9 and almost 7) with Rosemary Sutcliffe’s excellent _Black Ships Before Troy_. She has an Odyssey version, but I think the Marvel will be a nice addition. So glad you mentioned it!

   Sharon
9. Franklin Evans says:

   October 15, 2012 at 12:06 pm

   While I have a personal preference for Euripides, I strongly recommend the classic Greek tragedians. No less archetypal in construction, but more personal in the characterizations.

   I’d like to put a good word in for the “other” mythic traditions. The Eddas (a Tolkien source) and the Arthurian tales (Mallory is fun, T.H. White was poignant, but Mary Stewart did the best overall job in my never humble opinion) for northerly Europe, the rich traditions brought to the New World from Africa (the Anansi stories, for example), and a decent (may be hard to find) rendition in English of the story of Gilgamesh.

   Personal bias: Beowulf really needs to be read aloud, by someone who understands the cadences and stucture of it.
10. Egypt Steve says:

    October 15, 2012 at 3:20 pm

    I had the old “Classic Comics” version of the Odyssey. Fantastic! I also loved Kirk Douglas in “Ulysses” (1954) — or that is, I loved it when I was a kid. Haven’t seen it for 40 years, so I have no idea how it would hold up today.
11. Greg O. says:

    October 15, 2012 at 9:44 pm

    Mary Pope Osborne who wrote the Magic Tree House Series has a 6 Book collection of her interpretation of the Odyssey. Touching story and even Odysseus’ Dog waits for his return. I thought it was a great age appropriate intro to the classics!
12. evw says:

    November 28, 2012 at 7:28 pm

    One of our kids who had difficulty reading, was able to join his older siblings in conversation when he found the ‘Hobbit’ graphic novel.

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