Publishers Weekly
★ 09/09/2024
In this epic tale, lavishly illustrated by Cockcroft (A Song of Sun and Sky), Holland (Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age) mixes reality and mythology to tell of the Persian Wars through the eyes of Gorgo, the eventual queen of Sparta who grew up in a world teeming with violence and magic, where gods actively influenced the course of events and the tides of war. Via straightforward yet lilting narration, through which Gorgo ages from tweendom to adulthood, she shares stories of gods, heroes, mortals, and monsters, as told to her by the people in her life. Over the course of her storytelling, Gorgo finds herself embroiled in matters of politics and diplomacy, becoming instrumental in guiding her people through years of strife and uncertainty when the Persian Empire—led by Xerxes, the mighty King of Kings—threatens to conquer Sparta. Historian Holland draws from his subject-matter expertise to deliver an accessible, educational, and engaging reimagining of Herodotus’s Histories. Though it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the plethora of characters, events, and myths covered here, it’s a fascinating work and an ideal primer for curious readers and Greek history enthusiasts alike. Ages 9–12. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
In this epic tale, lavishly illustrated by Cockcroft, Holland mixes reality and mythology to tell of the Persian Wars. . . . A fascinating work and an ideal primer for curious readers and Greek history enthusiasts alike.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Atmospheric illustrations ratchet up the melodrama in this retelling of the war between the Greeks and Persians. . . Dark and brutal.
—Kirkus Reviews
What a fabulous achievement! Not since Mary Renault has this kind of history come so alive and with such juice, energy, and excitement. I just know that my twelve-year-old self would have fallen on this like a . . . like a wolf on a lamb. Breathtaking adventure on every page, and just the kind of detail, color, and vitality that young readers adore. As does this old reader, I have to confess.
—Stephen Fry, actor, director, and author of Stephen Fry’s Great Mythology, volumes 1–4: Mythos, Heroes, Troy, and The Odyssey
A glorious mixture—of history, fiction, and thrilling legend, with pictures to swim the Hellespont for.
—Sebastian Faulks, journalist and acclaimed author of historical novels for adults, including Birdsong, Snow Country, and The Seventh Son
The Wolf-Girl, the Greeks, and the Gods is a wonder, as beautiful to look at as it is entrancing to read. Jason Cockcroft’s illustrations are jaw-dropping, and Tom Holland’s prose took me back to my own childhood introductions to these extraordinary mythological worlds in Roger Lancelyn Green’s Tales of the Greek Heroes and Leon Garfield’s and Charles Keeping’s The God Beneath the Sea.
—Frank Cottrell Boyce, screenwriter and author of Cosmic and Carnegie Medal winner Millions
Cloaked in mystery, sharp with danger, powerful in its bones, The Wolf-Girl, the Greeks, and the Gods is a modern myth of an ancient time that I wish I read as a boy, and will reread until I’m rickety and gray.
—Pierce Brown, #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Red Rising Saga
Kirkus Reviews
2024-08-30
Atmospheric illustrations ratchet up the melodrama in this retelling of the war between the Greeks and Persians.
Plainly influenced by ancient vase paintings, Cockcroft places slender, actively posed, geometrically planed warriors and women into darkly clouded settings sometimes splashed with red to reinforce the grim tone of a narrative delivered by Gorgo, daughter of a Spartan king. Like nearly everyone in the cast except the Greek gods and demigods who put in occasional appearances, she was a real historical figure. Though Holland reifies ancient legends by having Athenian girls literally turn into bears at will and Spartans of both sexes into wolves, he also sticks closely to the historical plotline while delivering pithy accounts of numerous myths and disturbing details of growing up in Sparta. Gorgo lays out in detail the political situation that led to the successive invasions and recounts Greek heroics at the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea. As a wolf, she witnesses the doomed stand of her husband (and half uncle) Leonidas at Thermopylae, with the illustrator treating readers to the particularly lurid sight of Leonidas’ severed head mounted on a spear. “Know that what you have read is the truth,” she concludes, but what may stick with readers is not so much what happened as the violence the book glorifies. Characters are pictured with a variety of skin tones.
Dark and brutal. (cast gallery, map)(Fictionalized history. 11-14)