Athena: Goddess of Wisdom and War, nuggets of Greek graphic novel, goodness

And here I thought Athena was the only Greek Goddess. As previously mentioned I don’t know much about the Greek gods. Young readers or those who simply enjoy an entertaining graphic novel will like Tales of Great Goddesses: Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and War. It’s from Imogen and Isabel Greenberg and details the Goddess of Wisdom as she helps Athens, learns to fear spiders, conceives the Trojan Horse, and more adventures.

The art in Athena immediately catches your eye. It’s not cartoony and has more of a folk art look about it. This appearance plays very nicely into the fact that the stories take place in ancient Greece.

Great Goddesses tells a somewhat linear story that’s broken up into several parts. Thankfully, before the story starts in earnest we’re introduced to the main Gods and Goddesses that are in her or Athens’ orbit. For those that know more than the average bear about their Greeks, it’s broken down into demigods and mortals too. It is not broken up into chapters, but short stories that are illustrated like a graphic novel.

Middle school readers will also appreciate the aroma that the book has. Really, the book smells excellent. The pages have a great, new-book smell, aren’t glossy and are thicker than usual. Some books smell for the better and some not so much. You book geeks know what I’m talking about. This is one that you’ll open again and again just to dig into that smell of well-crafted graphic novel pages.

The text is at a level that upper elementary readers and older will be able to fluently understand. Older readers (see: those with children) might find the text too small to really enjoy the book. I have this problem with the Hazardous Tales series also and tend to blame the books rather than my vision. To test my theory I gave Tales of Great Goddesses: Athena to our 11-year-old.

“Can you read this?”, I asked as I pointed to some of the normal text in the book. He said yes. “OK, can you read this?”, again I pointed to the book but to some slightly smaller text that occupies most of the narrative. Again, he scoffed at my middle-aged vision and said yes. I have realized that I do not have fighter pilot vision and could never fly a plane.

Athena is a great quality, hardback graphic novel. Its content lies somewhere softer than a traditional graphic novel and much more illustrated than merely a book on Greek goddesses. That fact will allow those who like graphic novels to be attracted to it, as well as those folks who are looking for something that’s different and fun to look at. Tales of Great Goddesses: Athena, takes the complex world of Greek Gods and culls it down to one person, whose name we know, but most likely don’t know the intricacies of their story.

Athena: Goddess of Wisdom and Warhttps://amzn.to/3iUYRbm, is by Imogen and Isabel Greenberg and available on Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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