Classical Mythology and More A Reader Workbook

As its title suggests, Classical Mythology and More - A Reader Workbook is both a workbook and reader of the myths of ancient Greece and Rome. The workbook requires outside research and reasoning, and also supplies bits of lore and, occasionally, simple recipes. The reader is suitable for middle school students, but with some oversight, since it doesn't gloss over awkward or sexual topics.

Classical Mythology and More - A Reader Workbook is an excellent print manual of Greek mythology for use by middle/high school classes studying ancient Greece, Rome, or the ancient languages Latin and Greek.

By the time you have read all the chapters, you will have covered all the major stories that were so important in the ancient world, especially, the Iliad and Odyssey, Aeneid, and many of the transformations told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Because of the authors' attention to detail, you'll also know where to go to verify the source material.

Authors Marianthe Colakis and Mary Joan Masello tell entire myths, with many of the incidentals and some of the variant versions, yet take only a few pages for each story. The book begins with an introduction to some of the gods. Here, it initially seemed haphazard to me -- I didn't know why some details were left in and others out, or why there were different sets of data for each deity, but the authors knew what they were doing. They were introducing what was most important to know about the gods and goddesses as it related to the stories that came later.

Since my perspective is homeschooling, I prefer exercises with answers that can be found within the text, so parents don't have to face the expense of an answer key. The exercise answers for Classical Mythology and More are not all available in the workbook, but require outside research, generally on the Internet, and an awareness of the world around us. There is plenty of room for dining table discussion and kitchen experiments.

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