Gr 2-4
All three of these books leave out key elements of the stories. Icarus begins as Minos commissions Daedalus to build a labyrinth for the Minotaur, "a strange creature...part human and part bull." The king is never pictured, and no reason is given for his refusal to let Daedalus leave Crete after completing his task. The Minotaur's origin is a mystery, an unfortunate omission considering that he is Minos's son. The comic-book-style illustrations are the book's strongest point. In Pandora , much of the motivation is missing, leaving the actions of the gods even more inscrutable than they normally appear, and the depth of the story is reduced by the attempt to render it appropriate for early readers. The lively comic-book-style illustrations capture the drama of Pandora's curiosity and the release of evil into the world, but Geraldine McCaughrean's collections do a better job of storytelling. The artwork in Medusa goes a long way in redeeming this otherwise confusing retelling, but the depiction of the human Medusa and the female goddesses seems more suited to an older audience than the reading level suggests. Polydectes's choice of Perseus to bring him the Gorgon's head appears superficially honorable; no mention is made of his hope that Perseus will be killed, leaving the king free to marry his mother. Perseus's use of the severed head to turn his enemies to stone and win his bride is omitted; the story ends with the pious discovery that "Medusa had beauty inside her after all." In all three books, the font is too small for beginning readers and the storytelling suffers from its controlled vocabulary and sentence structure.-Rebecca Donnelly, LomaColorado Public Library, Rio Rancho, NM
