Riordan’s books prompt an uneasy interrogation of the premise underlying the “so long as they’re reading” side of the debate—at least among those of us who want to share Neil Gaiman’s optimistic view that all reading is good reading, and yet find ourselves by disposition closer to the Tim Parks end of the spectrum, worried that those books on our children’s shelves that offer easy gratification are crowding out the different pleasures that may be offered by less grabby volumes. Undoubtedly, Riordan has single-handedly sparked an enthusiasm among young readers for Greek mythology, and if kids are dressing up for Halloween as Apollo or Poseidon instead of Iron Man or a generic zombie, so much the better. My son and his peers know the tales of the Greek gods far better than I do, and if some of that is due to reading books such as Mary Pope Osborne’s wonderfully ungimmicky “Tales from the Odyssey,” or from having “D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths” in the read-aloud rotation from an early age, a good measure of that familiarity has also come via Riordan’s retellings. ow.ly/HoVoZ
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:55:22 +0000
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