The Odyssey

by Gillian Cross, Neil Packer (Illustrator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

This fantastic retelling will captivate young readers and teach them about one of the most well-known Greek myths. The drawings that accompany the story are stunning and sure to capture the attention of any child.

“Every image seems to have been created with unhurried care; it’s a quiet but monumental piece of work.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Odysseus faces storm and shipwreck, a terrifying man-eating Cyclops, the alluring but deadly Sirens, and the fury of the sea-god Poseidon as he makes his ten-year journey home from the Trojan War. And while Odysseus struggles to return to Ithaca, his wife, Penelope, fights a different kind of battle as her palace is invaded by forceful, greedy men who tell her that Odysseus is dead and she must choose a new husband. Will Odysseus reach her in time? Homer’s epic, age-old story is powerfully told by Carnegie Medalist Gillian Cross and stunningly illustrated by Neil Packer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536213188
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	03/18/2025
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 10.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Gillian Cross is the Carnegie Medal-winning author of Wolf. She lives in England.

Neil Packer is the illustrator of several classic books, including One Hundred Years of Solitude. His illustrations for The Odyssey took many years — "Nearly as long as Odysseus’s journey!" he says. He lives in London.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Every image seems to have been created with unhurried care; it’s a quiet but monumental piece of work.
—Publishers Weekly

Gorgeous.
—The Huffington Post

While Cross and Packer are not asking us to replace Homer on the bookshelf, their addition is certainly worthy of sharing shelf space.
—New York Daily News online

Interesting and imaginative.
—School Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

Lively and accessible.
—The New York Times

Every image seems to have been created with unhurried care; it’s a quiet but monumental piece of work.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Interesting and imaginative.
—School Library Journal

Offers an accessible introduction to an important work whose allusions stretch far and wide; fans of graphic novels, mythology, and really great storytelling will be glad to have this in their repertoire.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Many will be drawn to its intensity and originality. A welcome new retelling of the epic poem.
—Booklist

Cross has given us an excellent resource. In her adaptation, Homer’s story comes alive...Packer’s artwork is effective in making the story a contemporary adventure as well as a story from ancient times. We need more books like this to introduce students to classic literature as we incorporate the Common Core into our curriculum.
—Library Media Connection

Gorgeous.
—The Huffington Post

While Cross and Packer are not asking us to replace Homer on the bookshelf, their addition is certainly worthy of sharing shelf space.
—New York Daily News online

Dynamic language, rapid-fire pacing, spine-tingling suspense, and a sense of foreboding that looms larger than a Cyclops characterize Gillian Cross’s rendition of THE ODYSSEY. Both accessible and mesmerizing, the text emphasizes moments of heady hubris and relates even the most unsettling events with gusto...Appearing on almost every spread, Neil Packer’s masterfully rendered paintings depict, interpret, and vivify the text, adding a spectacular visual dimension to the storytelling.
—Curriculum Connections

From the Publisher

In this stunning, heavily illustrated retelling, Cross (Where I Belong) gives shivery life to Homer’s saga, keeping the suspense taut and recounting the story’s most disturbing events without flinching. When giant, loutish Laestrygonians slaughter boatloads of Odysseus’s men, the survivors are horrorstruck (“Sobbing with grief and shock, the sailors pulled away from that hateful shore”).When Odysseus travels to the Land of the Dead, ghosts crowd around the visitors: “Old men with gray hair brushed against newly married brides.” Not until the final pages do the gods allow Odysseus a measure of triumph. While Cross’s prose makes Odysseus’s journey not just accessible but thrilling, the book really belongs to Packer. Some of his images look like the friezes on the sides of Greek kraters; others are full-color portraits of gaunt warriors with haunted gazes or caricatures of their Bosch-like adversaries. Humor and horror coexist; sirens like patrician socialites lounge disdainfully above the buried skeletons of those they’ve lured to their deaths. Every image seems to have been created with unhurried care; it’s a quiet but monumental piece of work. Ages 8–up. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 8 Up—This handsome book blends a well-paced rendition of Homer's ancient tale with fine-art-style illustrations. The narrative is divided into chapters ("The Giant in the Cave" or "Stranded on Calypso's Island"), clearly conveying the sequence of Odysseus's twist-turning journey. Succinct sentences, vivid descriptions, and dynamic language keep the action unfolding rapidly while also emphasizing fateful moments of hubris (for example, the hero's getaway from the Cyclops's cave and subsequent taunting of the creature is summed up: "It would have been the perfect escape-if only Odysseus had kept his mouth shut"). Ranging from small insets to double-page renderings, Packer's gouache, pen, and wash illustrations appear on almost every spread. While many details hark back to this epic work's origins (costumes, textiles, outlines reminiscent of classical urns, etc.), the art has a contemporary aura, showcasing unusual perspectives and distorted size relationships, exaggerated physical characteristics, and modern references (Hermes wears a track suit). Flowing cutaways reveal faces of the souls nestled in the underworld, or gracefully posed Sirens surrounded by the skeletons of those who were attracted to their songs. The men transformed into animals by Circe are shown as pigs with the shapes of profiled faces incorporated into the mottled colors of their coats. Though interesting and imaginative, the visual interpretations are sophisticated and stylized, perhaps making the book best suited to readers with a more mature taste in artwork or an adult audience.—Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal

School Library Journal

An anemic retelling of the epic is paired to crabbed, ugly illustrations. Breaking for occasional glimpses back to Penelope's plight in Ithaca, Cross relates Odysseus' travels in a linear narrative that begins with his departure for Troy but skips quickly over the war's events to get to the sack of the city of the Cicones and events following. Along with being careless about continuity (Odysseus' men are "mad with thirst" on one page and a few pages later swilling wine that they had all the time, for instance), the reteller's language is inconsistent in tone. It is sprinkled with the requisite Homeric references to the "wine-dark sea" and Dawn's rosy fingers but also breaks occasionally into a modern-sounding idiom: " ‘What's going on?' Athene said, looking around at the rowdy suitors." Packer decorates nearly every spread with either lacy figures silhouetted in black or gold or coarsely brushed paintings depicting crouching, contorted humans, gods and monsters with, generally, chalky skin, snaggled teeth, beer bellies or other disfigurements. The overall effect is grim, mannered and remote. Next to the exhilarating renditions of Rosemary Sutcliff (The Wanderings of Odysseus, 1996) and Geraldine McCaughrean (Odysseus, 2004), this version makes bland reading, and the contorted art is, at best a poor match. (afterword, maps) (Illustrated classic. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews