Little Goddess Girls – Aphrodite & the Magical Box

Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams's Aphrodite & the Magical Box is a quick, giggly Greek-myth adventure for 7 year olds about four friends and a talking box that really, REALLY wants to be opened.

What happens

Aphrodite loves pink. She hops only on the pink bricks of the Hello Brick Road. She's also learning to think before she speaks, with the help of a twinkly crown from Zeus (she nearly calls someone a rotten carrot, and just stops herself).

The someone is Prometheus Carrot. He's three feet tall, he's carrying a flaming torch and he's just barged past Aphrodite and her friends Athena, Persephone and Artemis. So of course they follow him down a magic lift.

Along for the ride is Pandora Box. She's small, blue and round, and she asks more questions than anyone Aphrodite has ever met. There are words on her back that she can't see. They say "Do not open this box." Can you imagine a worse thing to tell a curious box?

The lift takes them to three very odd lands. In one, the vegetables walk and talk and are horrified to learn that the girls eat vegetables. In another, invisible babies tickle stone statues until they turn pink. And the third is a chilly cave with some very bored dragons in it.

It's so much fun to read aloud. The jokes are gentle and silly, and each of the girls has her own magic gift from Zeus. There's a little word list at the back with pronunciations, and some questions to talk about together.

It's a short book, so it's perfect for a newly confident reader who wants to finish a whole story on their own. And a child who knows the Pandora myth will enjoy spotting it (there's a note about it at the end).

What to read next

This is the seventh Little Goddess Girls book. Want to meet the four friends from the beginning? Athena & the Magic Land is where it all starts, with a sparkly storm blowing Athena right off her own street and onto Mount Olympus.