Ancient and Epic Tales: From Around the World

Gr 4–7—This mix of 29 short portions of myths, fables, and folktales will excite interest. Forest's selection, documentation, and skillful storytelling represent a monumental expertise. In the introduction, Forest explains that with such a plethora of material spanning centuries and continents, it was certainly a challenging selection process. She decided initially to narrow it down to stories with lively plots and characters and themes relevant to contemporary life, going on to then single out pivotal, attention-grabbing moments, within those selected tales as a way to encourage readers to seek out the full text. These entries present a mix of ancient, modern, and contemporary settings, and there are a large number of stories from countries such as Anatolia, China, Egypt, Greece, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, Persia, Rome, and South America. Each is a short taste of the epic it represents, with familiar tales (Odysseus outwitting the Cyclops; Thor retrieving his hammer) and lesser-known ones (Hunahpu and Xbalanque bringing the world corn; Finn MacCoul the giant). The magical text would have benefited from some matching illustrations.