Book Review: 'D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths'

(C) 1962 by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire. Renewed 1990 by Per Ola D'Aulaire and Nils M.P. D'Aulaire. 

In 1974, when I was 11 years old, my mom and I used to visit her friend Olga at a townhouse in the then-still new South Florida suburban community called Kendall. At the time, Olga was married to an Airlift Airlines pilot and World War II veteran named Joe. Joe was still flying, and Olga would often invite us to keep her and her three teen sons company while he was away. 

The youngest of the boys was only three years older than I was, and because I acted a bit more mature than most kids my age, he didn't mind when his mom asked him to hang out with me while she and my mom chatted out on the patio of Olga and Joe's Kendall townhouse and drank adult beverages. To entertain me,  Mike - I think that was his name, anyway - would often show me his collection of World War II models and dioramas; most of them were Revell kits of planes such as the P-51 Mustang and the B-17 Flying Fortress, but the most impressive was a "sandtable" diorama depicting the Battle of Anzio.

Quite often though, none of Olga's sons - they were children from her previous marriage - were home when Mom and I visited, so either Olga or Joe (on the rare occasion when he was home) would turn on the television in their cozy Florida room or loan me one of the many books they had in their bookshelves.

Although they had many tomes to choose from, the book I liked to read the most when Mom and I went to visit Olga was D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. 

I'm not sure why I was drawn to Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire's now-classic illustrated children's book about Greek mythology. At the time, my favorite genres were military history, aviation, space exploration, and action-adventure, and most of the books I read were written with "grown up" readers in mind.

Family tree of the Olympian gods. (C) 1962 by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire. Renewed 1990 by Per Ola D'Aulaire and Nils M.P. D'Aulaire. 

Perhaps it's because I had had little exposure to Greek mythology up to that time. Yes, I had dim recollections of seeing Spanish-language dubbed episodes of The Mighty Hercules cartoon on Colombian television in the 1960s, so I knew a bit about that mythical strongman.

I suppose my interest in the book was due in no small part because it introduced me to a wider world of ancient stories and beliefs that I, growing up in Colombia, had not known about. In Colombia, I had attended a Catholic private school, and although we got a lot of religious indoctrination, we didn't delve into classic literature or comparative studies of other cultures and religions. (We left Colombia when I was starting third grade there, so I don't know what topics I'd have studied later on had we stayed there. But Greek mythology, dinosaurs, and evolution were subjects I learned about in the States in my tweens.)

I also think that D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths captivated me with its charming, evocative drawings - some of them in full color - that depicted the gods, Titans, minor deities, demigods, monsters, and mortal heroes, along with simple (but not simplistic) text that provided the narrative of many of the myths created by the ancient Greeks.

Here, for instance, is the D'Aulaires' description of the Muses:

The nine Muses were the daughters of Zeus and the Titaness Mnemosyne. Their mother's memory was as long as her beautiful hair, for she was the goddess of memory and knew all that had happened since the beginning of time. She gathered her nine daughters around her and told them wondrous tales. She told them about the creation of earth and the fall of the Titans, about the glorious Olympians and their rise to power, about Prometheus, who stole the heavenly fire, about the sun and the stars, and most of all about the greatness and wisdom of their father, Zeus. The nine Muses listened to her with wide, sparkling eyes and turned her stories into poems and songs so they would never be forgotten.

Detail from "The Nine Muses" (C) 1962 by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire. Renewed 1990 by Per Ola D'Aulaire and Nils M.P. D'Aulaire. 

“I doubt I would have grown up to be the writer and artist I became had I not fallen in love with D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths at the age of seven.”—R. J. Palacio, author of Wonder.

Now updated with a new cover and an afterword featuring never-before-published drawings from the sketchbook of Ingri and Edgar D’Aulaire, plus an essay about their life and work and photos from the family archive.

In print for over fifty years, D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths has introduced generations to Greek mythology—and continues to enthrall young readers.

Here are the greats of ancient Greece—gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters—as freshly described in words and pictures as if they were alive today. 

No other volume of Greek mythology has inspired as many young readers as this timeless classic. Both adults and children alike will find this book a treasure for years to come. - From the publisher's website

For whatever reason, if I accompanied my mom to Olga and Joe's place in Kendall and no one close to my age was there, I'd end up asking to be allowed to read D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths.

Finally, on one such occasion, either Olga or Joe (I forgot who) said to me, "You know, you seem to like this book a lot. Why don't you just take it home and keep it?" 

This I did, but a year later, in a careless act that I regretted for many years afterward, I took my copy of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths to Tropical Elementary School during summer session and foolishly left it in one of the classrooms over the weekend. When I returned to campus the following Monday, I couldn't find my book. It had been filched by one of the other kids. 

My Take

I'm not usually in the habit of buying children's books; at my age, I tend to either get Star Wars novels and references or books about U.S. and world history. But for some reason, the loss of that copy of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths weighed heavily on my mind.

Recently, though, I decided on a whim to check to see if the book is still in print and if Amazon has it. 

And, of course, Doubleday Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, is still publishing D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths nearly 60 years after Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire's first edition first hit bookstores and libraries. 

Imagine that. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was President when D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths was originally published.  The Soviet Union still existed. Man had not yet gone to the Moon, and the Vietnam War, the Kennedy-King assassinations, Watergate, and all the traumas of that era were not even on the American people's radar. 

So, even though I'm now a middle-aged guy with lots of gray hairs in his beard, I bought a replacement copy of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. 

As I said earlier, this book is captivating because it mixes three elements - Greek mythology, charming illustrations, and riveting, simple-yet-elegant prose - extremely well. 

Check out, for instance, this charming illustration of Aphrodite rising from the sea:

Aphrodite rises from the sea near the island of Cythera. The art, of course, is a G-rated take on the famous painting of Venus by Botticelli. (C) 1962 by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire. Renewed 1990 by Per Ola D'Aulaire and Nils M.P. D'Aulaire. 

Sure, it avoids showing nudity, something that the ancient Greeks would probably have found amusing. But it's evocative of the spirit of the ancient myth of how Aphrodite was born in the sea and was blown ashore onto a real Greek island. It's colorful, sweet, and yet true to the story as told by the Greeks several millennia ago. 

And this being a book from the Sixties - albeit from the more innocent part of that tumultuous decade - there are some loopy modern touches, in the D'Aulaires' artwork.

Look, for instance, at this detail from a rather surrealistic drawing of Pandora and the evils she unleashed upon the world when she opened a box she was not supposed to: 

Looks like a cross between the works of Stephen King and Maurice Sendak! (C) 1962 by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire. Renewed 1990 by Per Ola D'Aulaire and Nils M.P. D'Aulaire. 

Because this is a book about Greek mythology, its stories are not all sweetness and light. Though it's kid friendly, it does have quite a few myths that involve sword play, monsters that must be slain, and a few instances of  truly bad parenting. In several myths, fathers go out of their way to prevent being overthrown by their own sons. Early on, Cronus swallows several of his children to prevent losing his power to Zeus. In other stories, Greek kings are warned by prophets and priestesses that their own kin will kill them, so they either try to murder or exile children to avoid their fates. This is not exactly My Little Pony-type storytelling. But hasn't Walt Disney Pictures made a fortune from scary, sometimes even gory, tales by the Brothers Grimm?

D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths is a good book for kids between the ages of seven and 12, but older children and adults will find some entertainment and enrichment in this classic work. too.      

Source: http://www.rhcbooks.com/books/36027/d