Barbara Leonie PicardRecensioni

At first glance this book seems like it would be a quintessential book of it's genre. It's a historical fiction with teenage protagonists written in the mid 20th century which will mean the historical detail will be thorough and correct and the writing style will be more dense than YA books written more recently.
But look further and you will see that there are many moral questions in this book as well, such as; is the arrogant distance between gentry and the lower classes ever a good thing? Is thievery bad when the situation is desperate? Does honour require you keep your promise even when the promise was made on a lie? Can a villain ever be truly reformed? and what do you do when the main characters who you are supposed to like, casually and positively talk about the slave trade?
This book leaves many of these questions open for each reader's interpretation.

I found this retelling a bit dry, but nonetheless good. The illustrations by Kiddell-Monroe are rather odd, clearly they are influenced by Greek vase paintings; the legs of men and horses are strange: the men's legs have odd curlicues in them, and the horse's legs are attenuated, like that of the Uffington White Horse.

I enjoyed this book, but
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I always want any protagonist whom I like (such as this on) to be left in a position where it looks as if the person will have a happy future that includes that person's children. This protagonist in this book seems to have a happy future, but one in which it does not seem as if children would be likely. Just personal preference.

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I read this book as a nine year old, and it has certainly influenced my life. I no longer own it, and it has probably not been in my library for forty years. But my memory remains. My best friend and I at the time really got into Roman and Greek mythology. This was the book I read and my friend read a general intro to Romn & Greek mythology. So, we started playing together taking the role of one of the gods. We determined we needed a third boy to successfully play, and recruited someone else. When he showed up we rode bikes and fought each other with sticks. The three gods we played were Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, three brothers, and we rotated the roles. Sometimes, a fourth boy would come and then we would add Apollo to the rota.

I decided to search Long Island libraries for the book I read 63 years ago, and found this book that seemed to fit the bill. I then read the preface and found this sentence: "To the Greeks, the sky, the sea, and the earth were divided up between the three divine brothers, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades." I realized this was the sentence that prompted our choice of gods, even though we decided that we should use the Roman and not the Greek names. I now remember our discussion: that the Roman names were better known. Further on in the preface, the fourth one mentioned was Hera whom we could not relate to and hoped we would never have a mother like her. But the fifth mention was Apollo, the Sun god of art and learning, and there was our optional fourth participant.

The stories of the Odyssey still ring with me, particularly Scylla and Charybdis, the Land of Hades, the Cyclops, the almost vain search of Telemachus for his father, and the problem of Penelope with her suitors.

This is an accurate and lovely version of the King Arthur Tales. The stories are chronological, each chapter a different story. These characters are legendary and yet she does a good job of making them human without losing their bigger than life aspects. I enjoyed it very much.

Barbara Leonie Picard snips many familiar tropes from the cloths of famous fairy tales and folkloric legends and weaves them into unique new little tapestries that would not look out of place in the grand old halls of traditional storytelling—although, unlike in old tales, Picard's stories sometimes touch upon sexist, classist, and political realities (in ways more subtle than obvious) & even some ambiguously happy endings. Philip Gough's pen illustrations add an antiquarian touch to this lovely volume of tales.

Not the Perrault stories, (which I expected) but the more chivalric ones like Roland. So it's not Sleeping-Beauty-for-the-umpteenth-time. This is aimed at children, but the stories are told in a clear and unpatronising voice and it works well as an adult read.

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I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to read this, but this description from Paul Dry Books (in addition to prior experience w/ the author) makes me want to:

As a young man Stephen de Beauville, who was born the day after Christmas in 1309, dreams of becoming a knight-not a promising ambition for a contemplative soul with a talent for drawing. Quiet and solitary, Stephen must endure the bitter torment of his older brothers and cousins until he finds his first true friend; through that friendship he gains courage to endure the lack of kindness in his life. But Stephen's father takes a dim view of his youngest son. Believing that Stephen will never possess the valor to be a knight-his goal for his other sons-the father abruptly sends Stephen away to live the rest of his life in a monastery, thus separating him from his only friend.

After a harsh apprenticeship in the monastery, Stephen realizes he must flee its confines. In a twist of fortune, he becomes squire to a wise knight, and then attains knighthood himself. The death of his own young squire causes the twenty-six-year-old Stephen to look inward. In doing so, he makes an important discovery: He realizes his journey through dangerous times has instilled in him the strength and self-confidence to find his true place in the world. One is One portrays a man ready to heed his mentor's maxims:

"Do not be afraid to do what you want to do."

"Be brave enough to be different."""