Kudos to the Steigs (A Handful of Beans), who employ colloquial prose, agile rhymes and art brut imagery to retell Greco-Roman myths. But beware: Like Ovid's The Metamorphoses, this zesty volume is a Pandora's box of hubris, lust and homicide. It opens with Prometheus, whose brother receives curvy, nude Pandora and her "baggage" from Mount Olympus. "Think twice, brother," Prometheus says. "A gift from Zeus is not likely to be a bargain." In a scrawled ink drawing, jack-in-the-box dragons pop out of a golden trunk. Elsewhere, lewd Zeus makes trouble by seducing Europa (as a bull) and doing a swan-dive on Leda (fully clothed but smiling blissfully): "He could never resist a mortal woman, especially one so agreeably sprawled on a bed of myrtle under the Spartan sky." Besides amorous gods, ravished virgins and incestuous parents, the collection recounts the weaving duel between mortal maiden Arachne and wrathful goddess Minerva, and the tragic love of Orpheus and Eurydice. Jeanne Steig admirably distills the famous stories, which she spices with euphemism and mordantly witty verse; only the knotty sagas of Theseus and Perseus contain a surfeit of complications. William Steig provides an antidote to mundane neoclassical art, sketching voluptuous nymphs and bloodthirsty boars in an earthy hand. An iconic drawing of the key element in each story appears as a chapter opener (e.g., a golden goblet for Midas). These racy myths will raise eyebrows (e.g., Daedalus fashions a cow suit for bull-besotted Pasipha), along with a curiosity for the originals. All ages. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gr. 10-12. Illustrated with drawings by William Steig, this compilation of Greek and Roman myths looks child-friendly with its chubby, square format and Easter-egg-colored illustrations. But the Steigs have interpreted the familiar material with an irreverent, decidedly mature twist that's best suited for older teens and adults. All the brutality, rape, incest, bestiality, and abuse of the original myths are here but presented in a voice that's witty, playful, and filled with in-jokes and euphemisms. In several myths dealing with rape, this lighthearted touch veers toward disturbing, implying that the victims enjoy or even ask for violation. That's certainly an important discussion point for teachers and parents to share with teen readers. Even so, some high-schoolers studying the classics will find relief in these lively, unpretentious, even blasphemous interpretations of the ancient material that play up the action and story over the archetypes. A list of the deities concludes, although there's no differentiation between Greek and Roman. --Gillian Engberg

(Middle School, High School) In 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne gave himself license to depict mythical Greek figures as children-""naughty,"" perhaps, but essentially innocent: ""It will be observed by every one who attempts to render these legends malleable in his intellectual furnace, that they are marvelously independent of all temporary modes and circumstances. They remain essentially the same, after changes that would affect the identity of almost anything else."" Hawthorne even wondered, in concluding one story, where the ""rosy little children"" who turned up in the palace of King Cadmus and his ""new friend Harmonia"" came from, remarking disingenuously that it ""has always been a mystery to me."" Hawthorne's Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales may be the most famously bowdlerized versions of the Greek myths, but the Victorian caution that engendered them has persisted even while the popular culture available to children has grown ever more explicit. Clearly it was high time to bring these venerable Greek myths up to date-which the Steigs accomplish, ironically enough, by reaching back two millennia to the Roman poet Ovid, whose candidly ribald Metamorphoses once delighted schoolboys forced to study Latin. Though Jeanne Steig doesn't credit her sources and has evidently used others as well, in most of these myths she replicates Ovid's racy, richly detailed plots, enlivening them even more with such contemporary turns of phrase as ""I've been worried about the old goat"" (Bacchus, concerning the satyr Silenus). Recounting the gods' multitudinous amours, her touch is light, her imagery concrete, her vocabulary imaginative and extensive, its use playful: ""On the ravaged earth [Hades] ravaged the girl [Persephone]...."" Zeus beds Leda, in ""a foaming of feathers, a churning of wings and limbs-it was done, he was gone.... 'Rude,' murmured Leda. 'And highly unsatisfactory.'"" As Arachne sums it up, ""Jupiter, to cool his lust, Rolled many a maiden in the dust.... Tricked out as river, lion, ram, Without so much as 'thank you, ma'am.'"" (Steig moves at will among the gods' Greek and Roman names, sorting them out in a concluding guide.) The giving of such ""gifts"" by Zeus and other gods dominates the early stories here. The book opens with the creation, by Prometheus, of men (""Rather like us, but less so.... Absolutely no wings,"" as Zeus requests); and, later, of first woman Pandora, who is Zeus's punishment to man for acquiring fire (his unreasonable anger doesn't prevent Zeus from observing, ""'Now that's more like it,' [while] giving the enchanting figure an affectionate pat""). Pandora's box lets forth not only ""all the plagues and misfortunes that ever might be""; it also unleashes Steig's witty catalog thereof, presaging troubles to come- ""Carbuncles, Quagmires, and Jiggery-Pokery, Colic, Depravity, Lummoxes, Louts. Barbed Wire, Insomnia, Practical Jokery, Treachery, Lechery, Deluge, and Droughts"" -and so on, for three more jocular stanzas. William Steig reflects his wife's text's comical, bawdy spirit with a sunny palette and deftly drafted figures of heroes, deities, monsters, et al.; his clever pen rejoices particularly in the callipygian endowments of nubile maidens-most notably in the jacket art, where Pan serenades an especially luscious pair, thus dangling a tantalizing lure to readers regarding the delights to be found within the book (or, for those of a different predisposition, posting an effective warning). I this were merely a modern return to Ovid's earthiness, it would be enough- a familiar tale rendered sublimely ridiculous by the author's splendid dexterity with words. But the Steigs do more. Their book spirals from relatively simple tales of creation and divine dalliances to myths of more depth and complexity, tales featuring human aspirations, life stories, and tragedies. In some ways, the trajectory here resembles the biblical progression from a god of wrath to one of compassion. Stories like those of the jealous Theseus, misled into killing his own son, or of Orpheus expressing his yearning for his lost wife, encapsulate the subtlest of human emotions. There are some provocative contrasts. Gods mate as they please, often incestuously. The mortal sculptor Pygmalion creates an ""ivory Venus"" that comes to life as his daughter/wife (a happy event that occurs after he caresses her ""icy, chaste"" form in the book's most explicit lovemaking: he ""laid his cheek against her full pale breasts, traced with his finger their delicate nipples...""). Most humans here, however, suffer profound guilt for their misalliances, which inevitably end in tragedy. Pygmalion's granddaughter, Myrrha, adores, and beds, her own father-to her ruin and his horror when he discovers who she is. Narcissus, ""object of passionate longing to all the young girls and young men who knew him,"" can respond only with ""pride [that] glittered on him like ice."" Interestingly, though Narcissus's passionate self-love dooms him to sorrow, frustration, and death, it also endows him with empathy for those who loved him. Jeanne Steig often follows Ovid scene by scene, preserving the gist of his dialogue and even his puns: asked whether Narcissus will be granted long life, blind Tiresias responds, ""If he knows himself not, Great age be his lot""; while the old nurse delivers Myrrha to her unknowing father with a duplicitous ""Take her. She is yours."" And Orpheus's lament is a gracious paraphrase: ""...I pray you, lend / Me what was mine. She will be yours again... / Or keep us both, and gain a double death. / Without her, I'll forsake both song and breath."" William Steig's illustrations are equally resonant, and equally succinct. Neatly confined on seven-and-a-half-inch square pages, each full-page vignette distills the essence of a myth: a golden Midas entrapped by a band of darker gold; Daedalus and the falling Icarus hanging between sun and sea, the only other figures in the spare, dynamic composition a single bird and a fish. Steig's sure, economical rendering and his expressive distortions and almond-eyed figures recall Picasso's late drawings and, especially, the Guernica. Pure Steig, however, are the besotted Narcissus lifting an insouciant foot as he delights in his own reflection, or the poignantly somber illustrations of such tragic lovers as Hero and Leander. At ninety-four, the artist still has a fresh eye and a matchless and malice-free sense of humor. Doubtless some people will be horrified by this glorious unfettering; yet the licentiousness here is only different from what's available in the media in the quality of its rendition. Even more to the point, the Greek myths remain indispensable. They are uniquely intrinsic to our history and, in the language of psychology, to our very self-image; they are unparalleled in their cultural links to the visual arts and, most especially, to literature. They remain essential to the well-furnished educated mind. It is fortuitous that, by presenting them with such rare style and verve, the Steigs have not only brought back to life the long-repressed spirit of the old myths but have told them in a manner certain to intrigue young adults today. Still, even in these free and easy times, A Gift from Zeus may not be something kids want to pore over with their parents and teachers. Like the schoolyard rhymes in the Opie/Sendak I Saw Esau, this lusty volume may be most appreciated when it is handed secretly from reader to reader. That whiff of contraband is forever enticing. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Gr 9 Up-Although in many ways this volume is as enthralling as the Steigs' A Handful of Beans (HarperCollins, 1998), in these unexpurgated myths, as in their pagan sources, lurk suicides and other distressing deaths, lust, rape, incest, and human-animal couplings of various sorts. That said, sophisticated readers will be charmed by the lively retellings, blending vernacular ("wiggly, giggly nymph") and elevated diction ("amorous revelry") in focused and fast-moving narratives. Although 16 myths are featured, many more are told in passing. Clever and elliptical brief verses are scattered throughout the text, reminding readers of the connection between myths and songs. William Steig's fierce, funny, faux-naive illustrations add a piquant touch: the irate Demeter, dead bunny and gull at her feet, with a duck bombing to Earth beside her, is particularly delicious. Others are more romantic or celebratory, but all are colorful and carefully composed. For older readers, this book marries two immortals: Steigian art and classical myth.-Patricia Lothrop-Green, St. George's School, Newport, RI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The Steigs follow up A Handful of Beans: Six Fairy Tales (1998) with tales of heroic deeds, passionate love, mistreated women, and Olympian hanky-panky from an older tradition. Except for Hercules, who gets but an occasional mention, the major gods, demigods, and mortals are here, from tenderhearted (and, as it turns out, -livered) Prometheus, to Orpheus and Eurydice. With the illustrator adding an occasional spiky sketch featuring scantily clad nymphs or narrow-shouldered heroes, the author massages the classical plots with casually phrased dialogue and occasional light verse, such as this from the ravening Chimfra: "A tender maid for breakfast, / A toothsome lad for lunch, / Oh, the succulent flesh / Of the young and the fresh! / Crunch, crunch, crunch." Readers already familiar with the stories will enjoy these somewhat skewed renditions immensely. (Mythology. 12+)