Author: Rebecca Resinski

David Almond, My Name is Mina

Mina is nine years old. She lives with her mother; her father has died. And Mina faces challenges. The very process of growing up presents difficulties, compounded by her grief for her father. She is also smart and unusual, which makes it hard for her to forge friendships at school and fall in line with the expectations of a traditional educational environment. After Mina has some run-ins with the school administration, Mina’s mother decides to homeschool her, and Mina begins writing in a journal. My Name is Mina is that journal; the print edition of the book even uses handwriting fonts to make readers feel like they are holding something personal and private. In her private book Mina relates memories, catalogs wonders, writes poems, records observations, and more. As she processes her past and present through her writing, Mina invokes three mythological figures repeatedly: Orpheus, Persephone, and Icarus. The myth of Orpheus underscores human mortality, while that of Persephone offers comfort through its promise of seasonal renewal. Icarus becomes an exemplar of winged spirit rather than a cautionary tale. Almond uses myth as a source of resonant symbols which help Mina to understand and contextualize her experiences and herself.

Ami Polonsky, Gracefully Grayson

The world sees sixth-grade Grayson as a boy. That’s not how she sees herself, and the gap between others’ perceptions and Grayson’s own is painful. When Grayson’s Humanities teacher, Finn, holds auditions for his theatrical adaptation of the myth of Persephone, Grayson decides to try out for the part of Persephone. She is cast in the role and faces a range of reactions from family, friends, and members of the larger school community. Detractors create difficulties for Grayson as well as for Finn, but the play nevertheless gives Grayson a space in which to express herself—a first step in Grayson’s public assertion of her identity. While Grayson herself does not explore the connections between Persephone’s experiences and her own, Polonsky makes sure that readers can. The plot of the play is carefully described so that readers previously unfamiliar with Persephone’s story are clued in, and Finn’s adaptation tweaks the myth in ways which heighten the resonance between Persephone’s situation and Grayson’s while also making the myth less violent and troubling than it is in ancient renditions. Polonsky doesn’t force strict parallels but instead quietly sows points of possible connection throughout the text. For instance, there is more than one “Demeter” figure in Grayson’s life, and they aren’t all females. Gracefully Grayson compassionately presents a crucial stage in Grayson’s personal development and gently suggests to readers that myth can play a part in coming to understand oneself, others, and the wider world.

Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett, Gender Swapped Greek Myths

I often skip reading introductory materials because I don’t want someone to tell me what to think about a book before I have a chance to experience it myself. In the case of Gender Swapped Greek Myths, however, the authors’ note is illuminating and crucial. Fransman and Plackett explain the project of the book and the process of making it. They took public domain retellings of Greek myths for children, published in the late 19th or early 20th century, and applied a computer algorithm developed by Plackett to identify and replace gender-specific words. For instance, “Theseus” becomes “Thesea,” and “maidens” becomes “lads.” Sometimes the switches require a judgment call or artistic license: “nymphs” becomes “satyrs,” and “Minotaur” becomes “Minoheifer.”

Fransman followed a somewhat analogous process in creating the images for the book. She surveyed depictions of the mythological characters with an eye to the ways they instantiate power relations, and those configurations serve as a springboard for Fransman’s illustrations. We see, for example, Andromachus—a nearly naked man—bound to a rock as an offering to the sea beast and Hadia forcibly carrying Persephonus away. Anticipating an objection that a binary approach is reductive, the authors assure readers that they recognize that there are more than two genders, but they have chosen to focus on the two that have been dominant historically.

Fransman and Plackett also mention that the goal of the project isn’t utopian or corrective. They are not presenting a woman-over-man hierarchy as better than a man-over-woman one, nor are they trying to settle a score. Instead, they hope that the gender swapped stories become an occasion for us to reflect on our collective assumptions and individual expectations about gender. Some moments may feel liberating, while others may be unsettling. Reactions will differ from reader to reader, and noticing our own reactions is the point. I think of myth as a discourse that encourages experiments with ideas, and I appreciate how Gender Swapped Greek Myths engages and extends this capacity of myth.

Stories included in the volume:  “Pandorus and His Casket,” “Zea and Ion the Bull,” “Persephonus, Demetrus and Hadia,” “Persea and the Medus’ Head,” “The Fall of Icara,” “Thesea and the Minoheifer,” “Orphia and Eurydicus,” “Arachnus the Weaver,” “Odyssea and the Cyclopess,” “Odyssea, Circus and the Sirens,” “Erosa and Psychus,” “Pygmalia and Her Statue, Galateus,” “Atalantus, the Male Huntress.”