Greece! Rome! Monsters! (Getty Trust Publications: J. Paul Getty Museum)

Everybody's heard of a centaur, but not everyone has seen a blue centaur dressed to head out to a disco! He's one of the updated mythological creatures who populate Greece! Rome! Monsters!.

This book presents twenty creepy creatures--from harpies to Medusa herself to the fire-breathing Chimera--in jazzy retellings by John Harris, with eye-popping illustrations by Southern California illustrator Calef Brown. Together, the words and pictures provide children (and grownups!) with close encounters of the mythological kind. Includes a bonus pronunciation guide and a pop quiz that will test to see if young readers have really been paying attention.

Grade 3-7-"One look from him and whammo!-you're dead. That's a basilisk for you.- (How's this for gross? If you were stung by a basilisk, your flesh would fall off your bones!)." Twenty monsters from Greek and Roman mythology receive this very accessible and entertaining treatment. Each creature, from centaur and minotaur to sirens and unicorn, gets a paragraph or two on a spread illustrated in a quirky and colorful style. Harris makes plenty of references to the myth(s) in which the monster is featured, as well as to relevant literature and art. Buy this book for your students who are already reading myths, but make sure that those whose interest is piqued by it know where to find the stories.
Sally Bates Goodroe, formerly at Harris County Public Library, Houston, TX
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This unsatisfying compendium profiles mythical creatures, from dangerous ("Scylla consisted of twelve dogs that never stopped barking") to darling ("Everyone loves a Unicorn!"). A rooster-headed, dragon-bodied Basilisk, shown trotting across a volcanic landscape, kills with an angry glance: "One look from him/ and whammo! you're dead. (And that's where we get the strange expression a basilisk gaze.)" Prancing fauns cause a literal "Pan-ic," since "Pan liked to jump out from behind a bush or rock and scare people Booo!" Harris, a senior editor at Getty Publications, offers pithy remarks on the animals' weird features, but gives the actual myths short shrift. He mentions only that "Cerberus had a run-in with the hero Hercules" (a few pages later, readers learn the Cyclops Polyphemus "had... a run-in with Odysseus") and that "Bellerophon and Pegasus had many neat adventures"; dated slang like "way out" seems as antiquated as the Minotaur. On the other hand, the hippie lingo complements the artwork, which favors groovy shades of sour-apple green, turquoise blue and terracotta orange. In Brown's (Polkabats and Octopus Slacks) portraits, a centaur sports a pompadour and leather vest, and the caftan-wearing Sirens resemble 1960s folk rockers. Such an oddball approach could be entertaining, yet the volume feels incomplete; in addition to the mythic characters' sketchy backgrounds, a concluding quiz asks for just 11 of the 20 figures, and a pronunciation guide lists some words and not others. Ages 9-up.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.