Little Goddess Girls – Persephone & the Evil King

Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams's Little Goddess Girls Persephone & the Evil King is a short, sparkly quest for 7 year olds about a girl who thinks she has nothing useful to bring.

What happens

Persephone is part flower bush. Leaves and flowers grow from her dress and her curly red hair, along with four-leaf clovers for luck. She and her friends Athena, Aphrodite and Artemis are goddess girls on a magical Mount Olympus.

This story picks up straight after Athena & the Island Enchantress. The girls, and a very strong boy called Heracles, have been sent to rescue a queen. A grumpy king called Hephaestus has trapped her inside his mountain.

The way in is through two bronze doors that slam shut again and again (like a big mouth with sideways teeth, says Persephone). Athena dashes through after her dog Oliver. BANG! Now she's missing too.

Inside, the king has an army of walking stick-men and a room stuffed with treasures. Jewels, bowls, crystal animals, a silver bell. Some of them aren't really treasures at all. He's changed the queen, Athena and Oliver into objects. Persephone gets seven guesses to find them. If she fails, all four friends become part of his collection!

Persephone's the one chosen, because of her lucky clovers. But underground, away from the sun, her clovers start to droop…

It's lovely for newly confident readers. The chapters are short, the sentences are simple and there's a word list at the end for trickier words like chariot and enchantress. The guessing game is exciting in a safe way, and your reader can hunt for the answer alongside Persephone.

The best bit is Persephone herself. Aphrodite has a chariot. Artemis has her bow. Heracles has his club. Persephone has… flowers? Plenty of children know how it feels to think everyone else is better at things. It's very satisfying to watch her work out that she has something to offer after all.

There's a gentle message in there about ruling with kindness, too, which suits this age perfectly.

If your reader loves friendship, magic and a bit of Greek myth, this series is a treat. They don't need to know the myths already.

What to read next

If they'd like to meet the four girls from the start, go back to Athena & the Magic Land. That's where Athena, glued to a pet game on her tablet, gets whisked away by a sparkly storm and lands next to a real little white dog called Oliver.