The Mt. Olympus Zoo: A Novel - Softcover

Lowenstein, Sallie; Kenney, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0965848604 ISBN 13: 9780965848602

Publisher: Lion Stone Books, 1997

About this title

From the Publisher

A much loved and unusual book for the age group
REVIEW FROM LIBRARY TALK(March/April 1991): The Mt. Olympus Zoo combines a good story with a lot of information about mythology. The Powers family is visiting unusual zoos during its summer vacation. Mt. Olympus, housed in a stone castle, is part of the Mythical Beast Wildlife Fund, dedicated to saving these rare creatures from extinction. The zoo tour includes sightings of a Kappa from Japan, a sea dog, a Ghormuha and a sea serpent. With each experience the family begins to accept the fact that the creatures are not mechanical contraptions but actually exist... Creatures from every culture are represented. Information about the creatures appears within the story and in the appendix. The author's illustrations are interspersed throughout the book.

REVIEW FROM THE GAZETTE NEWSPAPERS, Jan. 14,1998:

Gargoyles, unicorns, mysterious shape shifters and other mythical beasts strut their stuff in "The Mt. Olympus Zoo," a children's novel that pulls off a rather graceful feat of its own: it is an educational book that weaves its considerable erudition seamlessly into a rollicking story line.

The Powers family ---11-year-old Nick , 7-year-old Olivia and their parents Harold and Martha--- are visiting off beat zoos for their summer vacation. The first stop is a petting zoo in which the jaguar, viper, lion and other animals are all made of cast concrete. The second features lethargic reptiles including a Komodo dragon.

Not a very promising start. As they approach the third stop on the tour, Nick explains to his sister that in ancient Greece Mount Olympus was home of the gods. None of the family knows why the zoo has that particular name, but the story begins to unfold when they see several Gargoyles perched atop columns at the entrance...Over the next days the Powers meet a series of characters that could have come straight from the pen of Dr. Seuss or Maurice Sendak...

Some of the cretures are a baby Fire Drake, a dragon who hordes gold; two distinct types if unicorns, one Chinese and one European; a magnificent flying horse...The book closes with John Kenney's alphabetic listing of the mytholgical creatures. Kenney notes that several of these mythical creatures appear in slightly different forms, in different cultures. He includes several interesting details as well: the words gargoyle and gargle share a similar root; the rook in chess is associated with the Roc, an enormous mythic Arabic bird.

Kenney's compilation is so rich in references --- he cites "The Arabian Nights" and early scholars like Pliny the Elder and Herodotus --- it could inspire adults as well as children to further study of these strange creatures so deeply rooted in our collective memory.

About this edition

• Publisher: Lion Stone Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0965848604
• ISBN 13: 9780965848602
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 252