Pandora Gets Jealous by Carolyn Hennesy

From the Publisher

Pandora released seven deadly sins—now the first is in paperback!

“It won’t be hard to sell this to Rick Riordan fans.” —Kirkus Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Harry Potter meets Edith Hamilton in this cheeky rendition of Pandora's famous faux pas, first in the Mythic Adventures series. Prometheus's daughter, Pandora, sneaks the notorious box of evils out of hiding rather than bring her father's boring old eagle-eaten liver to a student competition at the Athena Maiden Middle School, where she accidentally opens it and releases the plagues of humanity. Sentenced by Zeus to retrieve them, Pandora is aided by secret gifts from some gods and goddesses who, as Hermes tells her, remember their own youthful mistakes: "A little petty thievery, a few unrequited loves, people mistakenly transformed into animals or trees or hideous monsters. Things we're not proudof, all right?" Pandy, accompanied by two stricken friends, finds her way to the Oracle at Delphi and gets Jealousy back. Aspiring Hellenists will appreciate Hennesy's informed liberties with her topic, and novices will be not only fine but possibly inspired to go further. Debut novelist Hennesy's Hollywood comedian background shows in her witty juxtapositions of modern popular culture and classical Greek legend: her work is rife with mythic creatures (dryads, satyrs, gorgons), magic (a talking diary, winged flying shoes, shape-shifting) and lively dialogue (" 'Hey, sorry about the light,' Hermes said. 'Standard procedure. Zeus wants everyone to be terribly afraid when I appear whether it's good news or bad; but that kind of thinking is sooooo Bronze Age, right?' "). Accurate where it counts, this loosely interpreted myth rarely misses a comic twist. Ages 9-12. (Jan.)

Children's Literature

School is much more than getting good grades and completing end of the year projects. School is about having friends, looking and being cool, puppy love crushes, and being popular. Pandora Atheneus Andromaeche Helena, or Pandy as she is called, has none of those things, except for friends, or at least that is the way she feels. She has two best friends Alice and Iole, who are pretty much in the same category as she is in when it comes to school. Pandy is no ordinary middle school student. She and her friends live in ancient Greece, when the great gods of Olympus ruled the world. Her father is Prometheus the Titan, the immortal that brought fire to mankind and was punished for it by the greatest of all gods, Zeus. After many long years of suffering, Zeus released Prometheus from his suffering with one condition. This condition was that he had to guard a box that had all the evils in the world in it. If the box was ever opened the evils in the box would destroy mankind. Thankfully Zeus' daughter, Athena, put hope in the box to save mankind from completely being destroyed. Pandy, who is determined to impress everyone at school with her project of an example of the gods' enduring presence, takes this box to school. Pandy soon finds out she made a very bad decision. This novel is wonderfully written and downright funny. Readers will enjoy learning about the great ancient gods of Greek myths and will learn how to deal with peer pressures that have been around as long as myths. Readers will also be delighted to learn that the author of this novel is also an actress and trapeze artist, and she has written a whole series about Pandy and her friends. Reviewer: Laura J. Brown

School Library Journal

Gr 5-7- Given the recent proliferation of fine novels incorporating characters and themes from Greek mythology, including Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series (Hyperion/Miramax), Anne Ursu's "Cronus Chronicles" (S & S), and Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris's "Young Heroes" books (HarperCollins), to name a few, there is little need to add this title to most collections. Hennesy's depiction of Pandora owes more to the influence of the "Gossip Girls" than to standard conceptions of the pantheon. It may be reasonable to portray Pandy as a spoiled brat. Other plot points-that a teenager takes the infamous box of troubles to school to fulfill a show-and-tell assignment-are harder to swallow. Altogether inessential.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY

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