Books like The Iliad and the Odyssey

The Iliad and the Odyssey, by Marcia Williams, is the retelling of the two most famous epics, by the same names. The Iliad starts with the marriage of king Peleus and the goddess Thetis, which later have a child by the name Achilles. In Troy, king Priam and Queen Hecuba also have a child, by the name of Paris. Paris grows up and eventually steals Helen, the wife of king Menelaus. This then sparks the Trojan War which sends various leader, including Odysseus, to defend the honor of Menelaus marriage. After the events of the war, The Odyssey takes place and focuses on Odysseus’s journey back home to his wife and son. On his way back home, he encounter different foes that halt him, and his crew, and send them astray. These setbacks, however, are not enough to stop Odysseus from reaching the people he loves.The book does really well in reducing all the information from the original epics into children’s sized version. However, the way this book is written can make it tricky for some readers to follow, especially younger readers. On one page, someone can be getting married and quickly after, some goddesses can be fighting out of nowhere. Though this does happen often, the illustrations does a very good job at describing what’s happening.The book is written in a comic-esque style. The characters in the illustrations have dialogue but underneath every panel, there’s about 1-2 sentences of text. There’s an enhancing interaction between the text and the illustrations but in the opposite direction- the text enhances the illustrations. Because the illustrations have dialogue, the reader has a small idea of what’s happening, but no enough to know what the story is about. This is where the role of the main text comes in; it explains what the illustrations are representing and Because the odyssey is such a long story, this version is separated into sections, each with its own title. The title is found on the top in each page and is linked to what will happen in that section; if the reader has a hard time understanding what’s happening, the title will always hint towards the main focus/goal in that section. Overall, the tone the book is comical. All of the illustration are done in watercolor, in a very cartoony style; all the characters have wonky looking noses, lips and hair, which are bound to make anyone laugh and question the sanity of the illustrator. Because this is a comic styled story, the gutters allows passage of time/change of scenes very quickly and relies on the reader to understand that. Most of the transitions between the panels are action-to-action and scene-to-scene; there’s a lot to cover so the book focuses on the main event and action sequences that occurred in the original epics.All of the text and illustrations have a large border around them. Depending on what’s happening, the border changes. If the section is depicting a Cyclopes eating troops, the border will have skulls. If the section is about love, the border will have small hearts and flowers all around. These small details make the whole book more interesting to look at.