Reviewed by Jo on
Athena the Brain is the first in the Goddess Girls series, a series of books for pre-teens where the protagonists are the Greek Goddesses as teens at school, learning what it takes to be a proper goddess. While at school, they bump into the other gods and goddesses we know from the myths, with a hint of humour.
Believing that she is mortal despite the strange things she is able to do Athena receives a letter from Zeus one evening, Prinicipal of Mount Olympus Academy - where all goddess girls and godboys go to school - informing her that he is her father, and she is now at the age to join the Academy and start her goddess training. This first installment introduces us to a number of characters who will eventually have their own books, Aphrodite, Artemis and Persephone, as well as others such as Pandora, Medusa, Poseidon and Zeus, and shows us just what life is like on Mount Olympus.
Athena the Brain is such a short story - at 160 pages - so telling you much more would probably spoil the story. But it is a fun, light, quick read that I'm sure older children will enjoy reading. It's a great introduction to Greek myths, such as the Trojan war, without overloading the youngsters with too much info they would find hard to understand, and amusing, "fictional" anecdotes about things like why Medusa has snakes for hair and can turn people into stone. I say "fictional" within speechmarks because they're not correct to my admittedly wanting knowledge of Greek myths, yet it's a myth, so it's fiction anyway.
It was interesting to see how the myths were tackled for the younger readers who are the target audience, and I'm intrigued to see how the story of Persephone and Hades is told in Persephone the Phony, the second book in this series that was released on 3rd May, too. Fun and clever, I'm sure these books will be a hit!
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 7 May, 2012: Finished reading
- 7 May, 2012: Reviewed