Little Goddess Girls – Athena & the Island Enchantress

Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams's Athena & the Island Enchantress is a Little Goddess Girls adventure for 7 year olds about a quest, three hissing sea monsters and an enchantress with eleven faces.

What happens

Athena is eight. A week ago she came home from her first trip to Mount Olympus, where she found out she's a goddess. Then she hears the tiny goddess Hestia calling her back for a quest. She clicks the heels of her winged sandals and gets whisked away in her own toy boat (she shrinks small enough to fit inside it!).

She washes up on an island where nobody answers their door. There's a big black key, a boy called Heracles asleep in chains and a lake with a sign that says Beware of Hydras. The Hydras argue about which of them gets to eat her. How rude is that?

Circe the enchantress is the best bit. She has eleven faces that spin round every time she blinks, grumpy, pouty, crafty or mean. She wants Athena's cute smiley face to make an even dozen, and she locks her up in a tower when Athena says no.

Up there Athena cries and decides she doesn't deserve to be a goddess at all. Then Persephone, Aphrodite and Artemis come flying in, in a chariot pulled by doves, with Athena's little dog Oliver. Teamwork is the whole point of this one, and Athena learns that even the best plans hit a few wrinkles.

It's a quick, bright read, full of sound effects (Splash! Thunk! SSSS!). There's a word list and some questions at the back that are handy for talking about it together.

Just so you know, the island's queen still hasn't been rescued when the book ends. The friends are only setting off for the evil king's mountain on the last page, so your reader may want the next one close by.

What to read next

If they do, have Persephone & the Evil King ready. It picks up the moment the girls leave Circe's palace, told this time from Persephone's side, as they fly towards the king's purple mountain.