A Dad's Reviews

           There is something very special about mythology.  Each myth, each legend, that has come down to us is the creative work not of just one brilliant storyteller but of generations of brilliant storytellers, each one refining the story, reforgining it, sometimes putting new little twists and sometimes completing reinventing the story as something entirely new.  Myths are the seeds from which all of our modern fiction springs--you cannot have Harry Potter (and certainly not Percy Jackson) without the foundation of Homer and Virgil.       Given the above, it won't surprise you that I firmly believe that children need an early and thorough introduction to mythology.  But sometimes that can be a bit hard.  I recently began introducing my own children to one of my most beloved books, a childhood introduction to Greek mythology, and found myself suddenly having to explain why Zeus had so many chil...

     Books with animal protagonists sometimes seem to come a dime a dozen--on our shelves we have books featuring bears, dogs, lions, ponies, unicorns, cats (oh so many cats) and even an assortment of insects such as fireflies, bees, and ladybugs.       Precious few books, however, recount the adventures of the humble (or not-so-humble) snail, and this is a matter of great sorrow to Escargot, the dashing French snail we meet in the pages of this book.  No one chooses the snail as their favorite animal, Escargot laments--they choose instead the dog, the cat, the platypus, the  wildebeest, or the lemur.  To Escargot this is a great injustice--are snails not beautiful?  Are they not fierce?  Is Escargot not magnifique ?       And so Escargot sets off on a journey to the end of the book, where he assures us a salad with a few croutons and a light vinaigrette awaits.  Along the way, Escargot e...