The Children's Book of Myths and Legends by Ronne Randall

The Children's Book of Myths and Legends Reviews

• 
  Katherine

  Do you remember the first books you ever bought with your own money?
  
  I do.
  
  I had just turned 11 years old, and one of the first things I did after my birthday was go to Barnes and Noble. My mother and I made our requisite monthly trip to the bookstore so I could spend my birthday money. Naturally, I raced towards the kids’ section, but this time I was more excited than usual because this would be the first time I could buy a book myself.
  
  Another thing I should note is that this was around the time that I became a major history geek. This may have been a factor in why my first two book purchases with my own money (ever) were two big history encyclopedias about $20 a piece (for those of you who don’t know, that’s really expensive for a children’s book in the United States.)
  
  Clearly, I had a taste for the finer things in life.
  
  This book was actually the third book I bought on my own. However, those three books are ones that I treasure. Kon-Mari my ass- I probably will never be able to part with them. They’ve helped me on so many high school and college papers. They’ve been the source of inspiration for school assignments and book reviews. They are books that I am saving for my own children to read, and I’ll probably keep coming back to it when I’m old, withered, and gray.
  
  When most people think of mythology and legends, they immediately think Greek. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is such a shame that most schools in the United States incorporate only Western mythology in their studies. To put it nicely, studying mythology in American schools is about the same as eating as a loaf of extra bleached Wonder Bread. Hell, there’s even a specific California Standard that says it’s a requirement for Grade 9 students to be able to make inferences from Greek mythology. Students could probably recite the basis of the Iliad and rattle off the names of Greek Gods in their sleep. But ask them to name any non-Western gods or goddesses and you’ll get a lot of blank stares.
  
  Therefore, it’s so refreshing to see that this book does not focus solely on myths and legends from Western Civilizations. They incorporate tales from Japan, China, Africa, Aboriginal Australia, Native American, Egypt, and India. There’s a really good balance of Western and Non-Western myths (32 to 21, to be more specific), so children will be able to get a well-rounded view of world mythology and be introduced to new stories and cultures they may have never heard of before.
  
  This is more of an introductory summary of myths and legends. Each story takes up two pages and gives a bare bones, easy to access retelling of the much-longer versions of the myths. Kids will like this, as it probably will only take them about a minute to read each of them, which is probably all their attention span can take, haha!
  
  As you can tell from my gushing review, I love this book to pieces. However, there are quite a few of the stories in here I count as personal favorites.
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  Tulugaak and the Bag of Light--Only myths can get away with a woman swallowing a raven feather that causes her to give birth to a half-human, half-raven child. Only in myths, man.
  
  Demeter and Persephone- The illustrations in this story are creepy as hell, but even as a kid, I found this tale darkly romantic. Lessons learned? Never accept snacks from strangers. As a food lover, this is probably great advice to follow.
  
  Uke-Mochi’s Secret- This Japanese tale of how fish managed to get into the ocean is nothing short of magical. It’s also a wonderful introduction to the world of Shintoism.
  
  Arachne and the Weaver- Myths were often created by people of the ancient world to explain the unexplainable. As an adult, I find it absolutely hilarious that the Greeks literally had to come up with a myth to explain the existence of spiders. SPIDERS. It just goes to show that arachnophobia (see what I did there?) has been around for a long-ass time. I got to give it to them, though: they managed to create a beautiful story because of those creatures.
  
  Every Single Story from the Love and Marriage Section- I apparently was a sucker for romance as a very tender age, because this was the section whose stories I came back to the most. Our ancient ancestors sure knew how to craft a romance. Most of them didn’t even have a happy ending, for cripes sake.
  
  Echo and Narcissus- Not to toot my own horn or anything, but this myth was the inspiration for my
  Throne of Glass review. Specifically the myth in this book. Like I said, if Narcissus and Celaena weren't so in love with themselves, they'd make the ultimate power couple.
  
  Orpheus and Eurydice- My freshman year in high school, we were assigned to retell a Greek myth. Being the ultimate tragic romantic, I chose to retell the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. If there’s one thing Greek myths like to tell you is that you shouldn’t be so happy. If you’re happy, something horrible is bound to happen. Keep the tissues handy for this one.
  
  Deirdre of the Sorrows- My favorite myth in the book. Period. End of discussion. I know you’re not supposed to have favorites, but for some reason I fell in love with this tale faster than most YA characters fall into instalove. It’s a horrifically tragic tale (I don’t know what that says about me), but the sad tale of the doomed romance between Deirdre and Naisi left its mark on me. Imma need a full-scale, lush BBC adaptation of this myth ASAP.
  
  The Old Man and the Ancients- At this point you’re probably going “Katherine, WTH. All the tales you like are tragic and depressing as hell.” And you’re right- most of them are. This beautiful Native American tale of the Modoc people highlights how the moon and stars were made and how the tragic death of a chieftain’s daughter made it possible.
  **********************************************
  It’s amazing how much childhood favorites can stick with you. From the moment I bought this book way back in the 6th grade, I’ve loved it. It’s helped me with middle school, high school, and even college assignments. It’s helped take my worries away by leading me on fantastic journeys.
  
  And for that, I'll be forever grateful.
• 
  Sierra Collins

  This is a lovely little introduction or sampler to world mythology. I love the diversity in cultures represented. It’s motivating me to go find more readings on the mythology of indigenous peoples.
• 
  Sarah Northwood

  We've had this book for a long time but I only just realised I never left a review. This is a great starter book for kids who love mythology, and it can be quite hard finding good books on this topic. As I recall there were some parts which would not be suitable for younger kids but the book is filled with great illustrations and some good albeit brief content on the source of a variety of myths and legends.
• 
  Mouse

  A fun, cultural book of myths! Some of these stories are well known while others are not. The biggest issue here is that the stories are very abrupt and leave out quite a lot. Remember Heracles and his 12 labors? Well...they pretty much gloss over them all.
  It's sort of a good myth primer for kids!
• 
  Salem S

  I'd say 3.5. This is one of the most diverse compilations of mythology I've found in a single book, which is amazing, but some of the stories, like that of Paris, are so incomplete that it seems like an entirely different story. There are plenty of stories from any culture to replace any that can't be properly condensed, in my opinion.
• 
  D.M.

  We got this out of the library on a whim, and our daughter liked it so much we ended up reading every story (some twice)! The stories are the perfect length & style for reading aloud (each one is just two well-illustrated pages), the pictures are nicely done without anything to gruesome or scary (as some of the stories to have mildly scary elements) and there's just enough additional information (regarding sources, religions, connections to other myths) to make it an engaging book for parents as well.
  The tales are divided into seven thematic sections (e.g., Beginnings, Heroic Deeds, Growth & Rebirth) and each section (as well as each story) has a brief introduction to the concept (or tale). Stories herein are drawn most heavily from Norse, Greek and Egyptian mythology, but also from Japanese, Chinese, Inuit, Finnish, Celtic, Mesopotamian and various African & native American tribal traditions (and maybe others I'm forgetting), so the book offers a fairly comprehensive worldview of mythic lore.
  If I have a single beef with this book, it's the absence of stories from modern 'mythologies,' such as Judeo-Christian and Islamic tales. Perhaps they were avoiding the issue of stepping on anyone's sensibilities and beliefs, but they had no such qualms about other still-valid mythic systems so that argument can only go so far. Aside from that, this is a wonderful children's introduction to the wide world of story traditions.
• 
  Nathan

  I read this when I was 8 when my mythology interest was the greatest it had ever been I think. I think it was a good thing too ! I think it's great for 4-10 (also if your new the myths) it will give them a great understanding of myths without anything inappropriate for them!!
• 
  Ellie

  This is a great little book for some basic understanding of cultural myths and legends.
• 
  Sheena

  I liked it because it had adventures .