The Beautiful Stories of Life: Six Greeks Myths, Retold

The Beautiful Stories of Life: Six Greek Myths Retold offers suspenseful stories rewritten in an easy way to understand. For example, throughout the story of Persephone, the reader is put into a sense of wonder when the young, lively woman is abducted from Hades, the god of the underworld, without consent. The reader wonders if and how her mother, Demeter, will be able to save her. When Persephone is on the grips of freedom, a complication occurs that could risk the endeavor. Until the story ends and is resolved, the reader suspensefully waits for the happiness of Persephone. The story of Orpheus is also very suspenseful for the reader. On his wedding day, his beautiful wife passes away. The story documents his journey to reunite with show more her. Like the story of Persephone, Orpheus faces a complication when he is very close to his goal. The tale forces the reader to wonder if he will ever be reunited with his love up until the very end of the story.
The book also features vivid imagery through its detailed word choice. For example, in the story of Persephone, her abduction is worded as follows “…the ground opened up beneath her, a massive hand reached up for her long hair, and in one terrible moment, she was gone.” The text describes in detail how a humongous hand grabbed Persephone by her hair in what seemed to be the blink of an eye! The book also features a detailed description of Orpheus’ grief the moment when his wife dies by stating “The anguished cries of her young husband broke even the hearts of trees.” The sentence does a great job of painting a picture of a young widower screaming out in pain and anguish.
The overall main idea of the book is to describe stories that teach parable-like life lessons. For example, Persephone’s story aimed to teach the reader not to blindly trust those around you. Orpheus’ story teaches the reader to accept and cope with fate rather than to expand all efforts to fight it. The stories feature ideas that can be applied to daily life. show less

The author of this book is Newbery Medal-winner Cynthia Rylant. This book consists of six stories of struggle, love, and pride. The stories are Pandora, Persephone, Orpheus, Pygmalion, Narcissus, Psyche. Even though I am not a big fan of myth stories, I liked the way the author had the moral of the stories partly at the beginning and partly at the end. It gave the reader the opportunity to know what to focus on. I don't think there are a lot that children can learn from these stories, and as far as the entertainment aspect of the story, the stories are grim and it contains some kind of misery that seems like no one can overcome.
The illustrations are black, white, and gray and adds to the mystery of the stories.

“It is possible to be heroic without ever wielding a sword, slaying a dragon, or dying for a noble cause. While heroism always involves a fight for something, the battle can take place within oneself as commonly as it can without. The battle within is a spiritual battle and requires making a choice about what is most important in one’s life. That done, then comes the challenge to protect it.
For Psyche, the choice was about love” (Rylant, 2009, p. 51).

Cynthia Rylant retells the stories of Pandora, Persephone, Orpheus, Pygmalion, Narcissus, and Psyche in clean, beautiful prose, using simple language to make these ancient stories accessible to middle-grade children. The collection is beautifully illustrated with the richly detailed show more pencil drawings of Carson Ellis, illustrator of The Mysterious Benedict Society.

Curriculum: This book would make an excellent, accessible addition to collections supporting mythology units.

Rylant, C. & Ellis, C. (2009). The beautiful stories of life. San Diego: Harcourt. show less

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The myths were retold with a nod to the original style they were recorded in, but they contained more concrete insight into the lessons and morals that are being addressed. It makes it more attainable for younger audiences who may not understand the abstract concepts they myths are demonstrating. Plus, beautiful illustrations.

This book retells 6 myths of the Greek mythology stories of life. The book discusses Pandora, Persephone, Orpheus, Pygmalion, Narcissus, and Psyche.

I particularly enjoyed this book, because most of the information presented was new to me! I know very little about mythology in general, so I was very intrigued by the content. I think the book was well written for 5, 6 and 7 graders to grasp the concept of the myth, without having to have prior knowledge about mythology. My favorite of these stories was the one about Pandora's box; and the importance of patience, and not always giving in to desire. I think the language is very whimsical, and the illustrations, while sparing, are quite pretty and definitely add to the myths.

Mercifully short. But every third sentence jarred. Plagued by didactic non-sequiturs.

This book contains 6 beautifully retold myths about love and separation, pride and forgiveness, courage and cowardice, and hope. The stories are about Pandora, Persephone, Orpheus, Pygmalion, Narcissus ,and Psyche. The author thoughtfully places the moral of each of the myths in the beginning of it, which helps the reader to understand what he is going to read about. I recommend this book for children ages11 and up.