Has anyone read Mary Pope Osborne's series about the Odyssey?

[Sue G in PA]

We're getting to the Greeks (slowly but surely) and I've seen these books at our library (well, some of them) and just wondered about the quality/retelling of the storyline? Have you or your dc read this series? If so, do you know the order of the titles in the series and how many there are? I just can't seem to find that info anywhere. TIA.

[Zelda]

Yes. My 8yo dd read them this year. She enjoyed them a great deal. There are 6 and they are numbered at Amazon.

[Tina in WA]

We listened to them on cd and my kids LOVED them. :)

[Carol in Cal.]

Better written and better illustrated.

I think the Osborne ones are pitched a little younger.

[Zelda]

Agreed. My daughter read the Sutcliffe books also and liked them. I liked them more than she did.

[nmoira]

Tales From the Odyssey series:

The One-Eyed Giant
The Land of the Dead
Sirens and Sea Monsters
The Gray-Eyed Goddess
Return to Ithaca
The Final Battle

The reading level is approx. 3rd grade. I don't think it's fair to compare this series to the Sutcliff's Wanderings of Odysseus because they're written for a different audience.

[Eliana]

We're getting to the Greeks (slowly but surely) and I've seen these books at our library (well, some of them) and just wondered about the quality/retelling of the storyline? Have you or your dc read this series? If so, do you know the order of the titles in the series and how many there are? I just can't seem to find that info anywhere. TIA.

I really dislike these. I would prefer to not cover this material at all with my kids than to use these. (No criticism intended of towards those who choose otherwise!)

We own a number of retelling of Greek stories which, imnsho, are much more worthwhile:

Sutcliff's Black Ships Before Troy and Wandering of Odysseus
are absolutely *fabulous*.

Padraic Colum's Golden Fleece is very nice.

Olivia Coolidge has a number of wonderful books, including The Trojan War and The Golden Days of Greece

The D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths is beautiful and very tastefully done.

Geoffrey Household's Tales of Xenophon and Downey's Tales from Herodotus are both oop, but we felt they added a lot to our reading...

Roger Lancelyn Green has a nice "Tales of Greek Heroes"

Barbara Leonie Picard's "The Iliad" is a classic, and deservedly so.


There are a number of lovely picture book retellings of individual myths:

Charlotte Craft's King Midas and the Golden Touch
Marianna Meyer's Pegasus
Kris Waldherr's Persephone and the Pomegranate
and J. Simons' Why Spiders Spin are the ones which come to mind offhand, but there are many others.

Eliana

[Lizzie in Ma]

My 11 year old also enjoyed them. We now have the set on audio cd for the car and thoroughly enjoy it. We are now reading the Sutcliffe's aloud. The Alan Lee illustrated versions are the way to go!

[LisaTheresa]

I bought the books as a supplement to our ancient greece studies, thinking he would read one a week and he flew through one a night.

Lisa

[Closeacademy]

We read through some of them but my dc just didn't like the Odyssey. We tried the versions in Usbornes Greek Myths for Young Children and the one in Story of the World too.

They liked the book by Aliki on the Gods and Goddess of Greece and the one on Hercules and a few other Heroes but we got a great big snore for Odysseus.:)

[Sue G in PA]

I have dd11, ds9, ds8 (11yr.old reads extrememly well, 9yr.old pretty much on target and the 8yo is a bit advanced). Thanks!

Sue

[Soph the vet]

I vote for the Rosemary Sutcliff books as well.

[Jennefer@SSA]

the Mary Pope Osborne series here for ds6! He was completely captivated by the story of Odysseus and still talks about his adventures regularly. He wants the Playmobil Warrior Ship for his birthday just so he can act out the stories.

I had never heard of the Rosemary Sutcliff series until this thread but I am bookmarking them for another time.

[Chris in VA]

We are re-reading these now--DD7 loves them. They are nifty little hardbacks, and we were lucky enough to check them out of the library.
Odysseus' story in the original starts in the middle, but MPO has written these to be chronological, so they are easier for elementary kids to understand.
I will say, however, that they are pretty violent and descriptive (as is the original, of course). We read them last year for the first time, and picked them up again last week--I'd forgotten how bloody they are!
We keep turning to each other and saying, "Eeeewww!" lol

I am going to have dd read Sutcliff's books in the logic stage. I know those are better written. We do enjoy these immensely for now.

[mcconnellboys]

I see you've been given the titles. I picked these up cheap at a bookstore sale as my son asked for them. He was in third grade at the time and he read them on his own. I think they are fine for that. We also read versions of the story by other authors, which I think are even better, but these are fine as read-alones.

Regena

[Eliana]

Eliana, What is the approx. reading level of the books you mentioned?I have dd11, ds9, ds8 (11yr.old reads extrememly well, 9yr.old pretty much on target and the 8yo is a bit advanced). Thanks!
Sue

My kids are very atypical, but I'll give you my best guesses (based on publisher's recommendations when I can find them):

Sutcliff's books: ages 9-12
Colum's: Ages 9-12
Coolidge - I'm not sure! One listing I saw for one book gave grades 4-8 as a range.
d'Aulaires' Greek Myths - I'm guessing easier than the ones listed above
Household's *Exploits* of Xenophon (I think I got the title wrong in my earlier post) - the reading level isn't much different than the Coolidge, but the material is less engaging for the younger end of the range, I think
Similarly, though not as strongly for Downey's book

RL Green's Tale of Troy (and Tales of Greek heroes, which precedes it, and Luck of Troy, which follows it) is about the same level as the Coolidge

Picard's is a smidgen more sophisticated, but not too much harder.

I'm afraid I have no idea how to estimate reading levels for picture books, sorry...


HTH

Eliana

[susie in tx]

I had these in our book basket and my 9 yo picked them up to read. She ran through them quite quickly, and seemed to enjoy them. Well, she asked for more, so I figure she liked them.

I read the first chapter of Coolidge's book and the first chapter of Sutcliff's book to my girls and they picked the Coolidge book. So, I read that one aloud to them. *I* preferred the Sutcliff book. If you get the hard-backed version, the pictures are amazing.