Booklist

Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore
Mad Myths: A Touch of Wind
Barn Owl Books (96 pages) 9781903015568
The two Steves are an irrepressibly brilliant team who have produced many thoroughly entertaining books for young readers. This is an older title but in a brand new edition, with a grand new cover, and it is part of a series, so follow-up books can easily be found. Perce, Andy, Willard and Eddie get quite put out by the school activity trip to Bogmouth. Then, on the beach, they meet an oddity of an old man, none other than Odysseus, and lo and behold they find themselves amid an ancient myth - again. Tremendous fun and mixed well into the story so as to be easily assimilated is the essence of the Greek original.

Kevin Crossley-Holland
Thor and the Master of Magic
Barrington Stoke 9781842994788
This review also covers Francesca G. Ewart's Bima and the Water of Life, Lily Hyde's Jack and the Dragon's Tooth and Oisin McGann's The Goblin of Tara.

These four recent books from Barrington Stoke are each so superb in story, writing, design and illustration that it is virtually impossible to single out just one, so here are all four. The covers state that the interest range is age 10 to 14 and they are created to have a reading age of 8. All have arresting covers and dramatic graphic-style drawings from four illustrators, and each has good print on a creamish background and between 55 and 65 pages.

Thor is of Nordic origin and is retold by a master of the art of giving the written word an oral, talk-out-loud, flavour. There are giants, combat, trickery, horrible images and amazing writing, such as 'the icy water was hurling itself from rock to rock, spitting and snarling'. Bima is the larger-than-life hero from Indian tradition here pitted against flesh-eaters, sea serpents, and a couple of drooling, glittering-fanged giants who succeed by inadvertently earning the aid of a god. The Jack tale is of Ukrainian origin and the lad is so unlucky that even his own father tries to drown him, but the underdog, at one stage known as 'no-clothes Jack', wins through in the end. The Irish Goblin is a blood-craving visitor to Tara at Hallowe'en, pictured with some delight in the violence, but Finn MacCool saves the day

Franzeska G Ewart
Bima and the Water of Life
Barrington Stoke 9781842995099
This title is one of four in the Barrington Stoke Reloaded series, reviewed together here.

Lily Hyde
Jack and the Dragon's Tooth
Barrington Stoke 9781842995136
This title is one of four in the Barrington Stoke Reloaded series, reviewed together here.

Oisin McGann
The Goblin of Tara
Barrington Stoke 9781842995143
This title is one of four in the Barrington Stoke Reloaded series, reviewed together here.

Kathy Henderson illustrated by Jane Ray
Lugalbanda: The Boy Who Got Caught Up in a War
Walker (80 pages) 9781406305340
This is credited as being one of the most ancient, if not the oldest, known story to have been written down as it appears on clay tablets from around 5000 years ago. It is from the region we now know as Iraq and the message within the tale is humane and sympathetic. A boy is with a huge army planning to attack the rich city of Aratta to take wealth back to Uruk. He is left to die when he becomes ill but is helped by a great god-like bird who gives him extra powers in return for certain promises. When he rejoins the army the expected ease of victory seems to have come to a halt. It is the boy who passes on a message from a goddess that Aratta can be taken only if the victors determine not to destroy it and to restore all the city's arts and crafts after the siege. The gorgeous imagery, colouring and beautifully rich pages of Jane Ray's art are a fantastically appealing addition to this well-told tale.

Shahrukh Husain illustrated by Bee Wiley
Stories From Ancient Civilisations: The Vikings
Evans (32 pages) 9780237533786
This series has recently been published in paperback form which is so much more 'cool' in appearance than the schoolish look of the previous standard, slim, hardbacks. Other myths in the series are from Africa, Egypt, Greece, India and Rome. This cover shows a wildly red-haired warrior holding aloft a hammer-like weapon. Inside are nine episodes of Norse origin, three of these featuring Thor and giants. The texts are brief but effective and while battle combats occur in some tales the core is of heroes and gods thrown against the fearful extreme forces of nature and the physical world. Bee Wiley's exotic figures and rich colours give it all a suitably other-worldly emphasis.

Rosalind Kervan illustrated by Wayne Anderson
The Secret World of Magic
Frances Lincoln (48 pages) 9781845074814
This is not a 'how to do tricks' manual but a mix of folk tales of magic and relevant information splendidly arranged and glowingly pictured. The stories are of worldwide origin with a number of British versions included. The information is about the elements, and the folk imaginations and beliefs that support the manner in which the stories were made and have survived. There's a guide to a variety of forms of enchantment (should anyone need a diagnosis or a supplement to the amount of fantasy that has been appearing in conjunction with that boy wizard's mass success).

Jeff Limke artwork by Tim Seeley with Barbara Schulz
Jason: Quest for the Golden Fleece: A Greek Myth
Lerner Books (Graphic Universe) (48 pages) 9781580133210
The larger-than-life figures of Greek mythology are ideal subjects for picture-strip graphic-comics style treatment and this is a particularly successful example. It works brilliantly as a comic in the super-heroic tradition with images to grab the eye, and also as a retelling of a classic narrative broken up into well-phrased paragraphs and dialogue. The artwork and a few words tell vividly of such incidents as the planted seeds becoming the dead arising from the ground even as Jason ploughs on driving the two supernaturally fierce bulls he has subdued. The book also has a glossary of names, a select bibliography, notes on sources, and an index. While the story is treated with care and respect, it is in a superb bang-up-to-date, in your face, format.

Carey Miller
A Dictionary of Monsters and Mysterious Beasts
Barn Owl Books (193 pages) 9781903015582
This is a book originally published in 1974 but revised, updated and expanded for a new edition. Seventy-nine different creatures, many mythical, appear in accounts organised alphabetically by their names. The Abominable Snowman - the Yeti - is here, along with the heraldic Yale, as big as a hippo. The entries cover a wide range of cultural sources and each has a short-story style narrative as well as information. These are the sorts of 'official' imagination-challenging fanciful creatures that can inspire and inform the very 'unofficial' fancies and forces of a boyish imagination.

Daniel Morden illustrated by Brett Breckon
Dark Tales From the Woods
Pont (120 pages) 9781843235835
Woods? Forests really - ominous, dim, drear, with pervading damp vegetation and threatening, looming tree-trunks - dark certainly. In fact, the title is a reference to the source of these tales, Abram Woods, a gypsy storyteller of a couple of centuries past, travelling round and about Wales and elsewhere. The author, himself an experienced oral storyteller, has extended and supplemented the fragmentary elements which have come down to us from Woods with adaptations from the Grimms. The stories given here, and wonderfully illustrated by Brett Breckon, are a gripping opposite to the washed-out cosiness of many cartoon film interpretations. Here are dark deeds, dark intentions and dark magic. Wholly involving reading.

Shenaaz Nanji
Indian Tales
Barefoot (96 pages) 9781846860829
There are eight traditional tales in this sumptuously produced hardback book. The illustrations are bright and attractive with the feel of authentic Indian imagery. The stories feature many of the elements common to such tales around the world. The occasional monkey king is here with princes and princesses, witches, and boys and girls. This is a sound and straightforward book with good, gripping stories which read aloud well too.

Sonia Nimr
Ghaddar the Ghoul and Other Palestinian Stories
Frances Lincoln (96 pages) 9781845075231
This is just one example of a number of similar, slim, illustrated paperbacks of folk tales of specific countries or regions. A 2008 addition is The Dragon of Krakow and Other Polish Stories by Richard Monte. There are nine tales in this book, some are familiar from One Thousand and One Nights collections, some are closely related to folk tales from elsewhere, but that is the gregarious nature of the form. A collection such as this helps to get closer to the cultures of a different race but also demonstrates inherent common features too. An introduction by Ghada Khami draws attention to the enormous strength of oral tradition among Arabic peoples.