wee classics

Hades: Horn of Plenty

If there’s one thing us millennial classicists love, it’s Disney’s Hercules. The songs! The design! The merch. Even the animated series was a winner. And Hercules himself is great and all, but Hades, the snarky Lord of the Underworld, is clearly the best character. So, I was v excited when Igloo Books sent me an advanced review copy of Hades: Horn of Plenty, a new release as part of the Disney Villains series. It was also excellent timing as I’ve just finished marking my students’ Underworld outreach projects – where Hades featured a lot!

He’s not as menacing as he seems, honest!

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Sneak Peek: Atlas of Afterlives

After a whole semester teaching all things afterlife and underworld, I can’t tell you how excited I was to have a sneak peek of the amazing Atlas of Afterlives. Written by Emily Hawkins and illustrated by Manasawee Rojanaphan, this is the latest in the ‘Atlas’ series by Wide-Eyed Editions. We already adore Atlas of Lost Kingdoms, but given our mutual love of all things spooky, this one immediately went to the top of our preorder list!

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Myth Masks: Theseus and the Minotaur

A surplus of cardboard boxes means only one thing: craft time! We’ve been enjoying lots of Greek myths lately, especially any to do with Crete now that our first ever family holiday is edging closer. So, tasked with choosing an activity for our cardboard mountain, the 6yo decided on mythological masks – and chose a super starting point: Theseus and the Minotaur!

The story of Theseus and the Minotaur is often one of the early encounters kids have with Greek mythology, and you’ll find it lurking in nearly all of the children’s collections of Greek myths. We read the version in the classic Usborne Greek Myths for Young Children before getting started. It is a fairly short and simple retelling, which focuses on the main narrative points: terrible monster lives in an impossible labyrinth and likes eating people, brave hero defeats the monster and escapes..

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The Mystery of the Golden Pyramid

We’re going strong with the Ancient Egypt theme at the minute! Since the 6yo has a four-day weekend, we’ve been sneaking in a little more reading than usual. This evening he chose The Mystery of the Golden Pyramid by Adela Norean and illustrated by Aaron Cushley. This lift-the-flap adventure book follows Sophie and (Anubis-ish) talking dog Ari as they race to recover the stolen amulets of an ancient pharaoh. Sounds right up our street!

Lift-the-flap books have always been well-loved here, but I now usually end up getting the 6yo ones which are way too baby-ish or far too complicated. So I was v pleasantly surprised to find this one was just right!

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Activities: Ancient Egyptian Afterlife

Just before the Easter break, we ran some sessions about the Ancient Egyptian afterlife for the museum’s Home Educator’s Day. It turned out to be a really relaxing day! A few people asked if we could make the resources available for those further afield, too. So if you’d like to find out more about one of our favourite afterlife objects – shabti – and try out the worksheets yourself, read on!

The Ancient Egyptians believed that even in the Afterlife they would still have to do the same kind of chores and tasks that they did during their lives. So they came up with a sneaky way to get around this: magical little figures called shabti or ushabti. These would be placed with you in your tomb. Once you reached the Afterlife, you could then call your shabti to work for you instead – while you relaxed in the beautiful Field of Reeds!

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