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Loading... Gifts from the Gods: Ancient Words and Wisdom from Greek and Roman Mythology (edition 2011)by Lise Lunge-Larsen, Gareth Hinds (Illustrator)
Work InformationGifts from the Gods: Ancient Words and Wisdom from Greek and Roman Mythology by Lise Lunge-Larsen
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This book is excellent. Lots of great details and historical context but presented in a way that’s very easy to understand and follow along with. ( ) This book has several mini stories popular with the greek and roman mythology. Archilles Heel. The authors use a focus word say archilles heel and define it to be a seemingly small but actually crucial meaning. The authors go on to tell the story behind this great word(s). Another word would be nemesis. They define it and then tell a greek or roman story that goes along with the focus word. Lots of pictures and large words to help with engaging the reader. A great book to have in a teachers libarary for older elementary students. I would not use it with early elementary mostly some of the stories do have some violence in them. In the classroom I might choose a word and make a overhead for it and talk with student about a specific word and then read the story aloud with them. Have them ask question pertaining to when they might have heard the word and not know what it was. I would then offer and guide them to their definition and how it might apply to them. This book is about words that we use commonly that have been given to us by Greek myths. This book doesn't have a plot line, but rather it is a collection of myths. It does tell of some interesting myths. For example it tells about Tantalus who fed his children to the Gods. Zeus was so angry he put Tantalus in a pool of water with apple trees around it. Then Tantalus was given a starving hunger and a burning thirst, but every time he went to get a drink the water lowered and every time he tried to get an apple it would rise up so he could never satisfy himself. That is were we get the word "tantalize". I did like this book for nostalgia reasons mostly. I did like this book because of the fact that it was interesting how some words came from Greek myths. I think the myths they chose were very interesting and how they chose words that we're familiar with. Some of the words include, victory and panic. The myths that they put in the book really kept my attention. I do recommend this book to anyone. This is a collection of of myths from Greek and Roman mythology. It is unique in that it strives to illuminate and illustrate the origin of words through the myths. I appreciated that the author took great care to use Greek mythology when the word came directly from Greek language. If the word had latin roots it was illustrated using Roman mythology. The author explains in a note that as a result of the Romans taking over Greece and becoming enthralled with their stories that they took many of the stories and made them their own and often gave the gods and goddesses their own new names when translating them in to Latin. The illustrations in the collection are wonderful and breathe life in to the text with the detailed depictions of the gods, goddesses, and mortals. The landscapes are rich and authentic to the time periods and geographic locations. no reviews | add a review
"Did you know that museums were initially temples built to worship the nine muses, the goddesses of the arts? That Janus was the god of the doorways and hallways, and we have named our janitors after him? Where did these words--and other words, such as chaos, genius, nemesis, panic, echo, and narcissus--come from? From the ancient stories of the Greeks--stories that rang so true and wise that the names of the characters have survived for centuries as words we use every day. The brief stories here not only impart the subtle wisdom of these ancient tales, but make us understand the words, and our own world, more deeply."--Amazon.com. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)401.4Language Language Philosophy and theory Communication; semantics, pragmatics, languages for special purposesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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