Icarus Was Ridiculous

Pamela Butchart's Icarus Was Ridiculous is a laugh-out-loud book of Greek myths for 9 year olds, told by a girl who's absolutely sure she knows best.

What happens

Izzy is mad about the Ancient Greeks. So whenever one of her friends does something silly, there's a myth for it. Zach won't stop drinking tea at the hotel breakfast on a school trip (and won't go to the toilet when Miss Jones tells him to)? Well, that's exactly what Icarus was like.

Then she tells you the whole story, her way. King Minos shaves off his teacher's eyebrows and keeps headless teddies on his bunk beds. He calls Daedalus "Dandelion". And Icarus is a sulky teenager who jumps out of the tower window before his dad has even explained how the wings work.

It's the same with the others. Jodi takes HUNDREDS of selfies, so she gets Narcissus, the boy who falls in love with his own reflection (there's a ferret in a toga too, don't ask). When Gary Petrie turns up with a homemade present to say sorry, Izzy grabs Jodi's arm and launches into the Trojan Horse.

Reading it feels like being cornered by a very excited friend who has read ALL the myths. Her sentences run on and on with "And then" and "So that's when", and the capital letters come thick and fast. You can almost hear her stopping for breath.

What's clever is how much of the real story is still in there. The maze, the Minotaur, the ball of string, the wax melting in the sun. Your reader gets the actual myth, just with extra kebabs.

These are the proper myths, though, so people die in them. Icarus falls to his death, Narcissus wastes away beside his pond, Achilles gets an arrow in the ankle and Paris is poisoned by fake hairspray. It's all played for laughs and never lingers. A very sensitive reader might still be caught out by how often a joke ends in a death.

If they already love a bit of drama and a lot of silliness, they'll probably find it hilarious.

What to read next

Izzy's friends Jodi, Maisie and Zach have school adventures of their own. If this one goes down well, try The Baby Brother From Outer Space, where the gang become convinced a classmate's baby brother is an alien.