Scan barcode
pelachick's review against another edition
2.0
Watered down tales from Greek mythology. Maybe ok for kids but all the best parts of the stories are left out.
pumpkinspies's review against another edition
2.0
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales intend to modernize renditions of Greek legends to the Christian child's taste and understanding. Personally, I think he failed. His retellings stripped the myths of their original meanings and morals in an attempt to "clean them up" and make them suitable for "civilized society." I think what bothered me most was his narrator's interjections, which often stamped out the imaginative properties of these myths by rendering fantastical creatures as a child's misunderstandings of antics retold by a relative. I felt the retellings mocked and insulted the ancient Greek culture without actually retelling or modernizing the myths at all.
More...