Author: Rebecca Resinski

Ann Marie Stephens and Tracy Subisak, Cy Makes a Friend

Cy the Cyclops is adept at building but shy about making friends. He prepares to meet people by practicing conversation, trying out different facial expressions, building a chariot which he and his anticipated new friend could share, and mustering the courage to go to town—where, happily, he finds a phoenix. The phoenix makes her own contribution to Cy’s chariot, and their friendship literally takes flight. Like his mythological counterparts, Cy has one eye and a talent for constructing things (readers may spot a trident and lightning bolts in Cy’s workshop), but overall Cy is more Muppet than monster, and the other mythological creatures included in the story are also rendered benign. In Stephens and Subisak’s picturebook, difference proliferates and is something to celebrate not marginalize. Using even friendly monsters as exemplars of difference runs the risk of unintentionally reinforcing ideas of what’s “normal,” but Stephens and Subisak seem largely to avoid this pitfall by making everyone in this book different and framing friendship as—at heart—a relationship between dissimilar people who appreciate one another’s personalities and talents. Cy doesn’t need to change himself in fundamental ways, but he does need to develop strategies and spirit to meet other people in the wider world. Subisak’s illustrations incorporate elements from mythology, fairytale, and the present day. At first glance the images’ accessibility might belie their artistry. They do, however, reward revisiting and unrushed viewing. An informational page at the start of the book provides brief notes about the mythological creatures contained in its pages.

Christopher Myers, Wings

In Christopher Myers’ Wings a young girl recounts the harassment which a winged boy named Ikarus Jackson experiences from schoolmates, teachers, neighborhood kids, and police. When the narrator summons her voice to oppose the boy’s antagonists and celebrate his difference, they both feel freed. Myers’ invocation of Ikarus challenges and revises its Classical precedent. The wings of Myers’ modern Ikarus are intrinsic; they haven’t been crafted by his father, and they aren’t the unwitting means to an unfortunate end. Buoyed by the support of the girl-narrator, Ikarus Jackson’s wings become an expression of full, soaring self, and Myers’ picturebook becomes a recuperative reception of ancient myth. The medium of collage connects Myers’ book to a distinguished African American artistic tradition and suggests that we both make and are made from what our world provides. Wings acknowledges the material, social, and historical constraints by which we are circumscribed but also prompts us to discover within those constraints possibilities for active reassemblage and hopeful, restorative transformation.

Julie Berry, All the Truth That’s in Me

When Judith was fourteen years old, she went missing. Two years later, she returns to town with part of her tongue cut out. What happened? How will Judith rejoin her community amidst the suspicion swirling around her absence and return? Julie Berry’s All the Truth That’s in Me presents Judith’s story through first-person memories and reflections that flow back and forth from Judith’s past traumatic experiences to her ongoing challenges of reassimilation. The novel’s setting is reminiscent of Puritan New England and may seem distant from Classics, but Classical mythology enters the story when a teacher snidely compares Judith to Io from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. As Judith works to distinguish herself from the mythological maiden-turned-cow, readers are invited to compare and contrast other elements of Io’s story with Judith’s own. Are the busybodies of the town stand-ins for many-eyed Argus? How is Judith’s mother like and unlike Juno? Who is the Jupiter figure, and what is his motivation? I especially appreciate that Judith’s process of coming to understand herself with and against the myth of Io demonstrates how engaging with Classics involves shifting identifications and differentiations. I also find All the Truth That’s in Me notable for its lyrical intensity and its exploration of relationships—with family, friends, romantic partners, community members, and oneself. Potential readers should know upfront that this YA novel deals with mature themes and issues of gender-based violence.