Zeus: King of the Gods by George O'Connor

Rachel's comments:

 

With the advent of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, we began to see a wonderful trend in the Greenwood Public Library: books that had not been checked out in years were being checked out. In fact, we could not keep them on the shelves. Suddenly, every nonfiction and fiction book about Greek mythology was being checked out. And we realized we needed a lot more.

Luckily for us librarians, the publishing world also seemed to get this memo. Soon we had many more books about Greek mythology to collect, some being better than others. Some were too cute, some were too confusing, but a few met the criteria kids were looking for after reading the Percy Jackson novels. They wanted action, they wanted accuracy, and they wanted Greek mythology to come alive for them.

George O'Connor has done just that with his graphic novel, Zeus: King of the Gods. He accurately describes the beginning of creation, according to Greek mythology, and the birth of Zeus. However, he doesn't just write about it, he illustrates it. He makes Greek mythology come alive for children who may have difficulty imagining how a being like Hekatonchieres could have fifty heads and one hundred hands, or how Gaea could fashion a sickle out of Adamantine. O'Connor not only illustrates these stories beautifully, but includes a glossary of Greek notes to explain to children the meaning of the names and to add more detail to the story. The only downfall to this story is that it stops with the creation of Mt. Olympus. I left it wanting to read the rest of the Olympians series, but only one other book by O'Connor, Athena: The Grey-Eyed Goddess is available at the moment. George O'Connor has already written a few graphic novels about the Olympians, and hopes to create twelve in total. Zeus: King of the Gods and Athena: The Grey-Eyed Goddess have both been published and are available at the library. Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory and Hades: The Wealthy One should be out later this year. Zeus and Athena can be found in the Greenwood Public Library's juvenile graphic novel section. We also have several other books on Greek mythology at the library. They can be found under the call number 292 in the juvenile non-fiction section or the juvenile graphic novel section.