By Donna Jo Napoli
Twenty-five Greek myths — the gods, the heroes, the monsters — retold with weight and painted in gold, from the making of the world to Medusa and Hercules.
The whole Greek cast is here in one book — the world made out of nothing, the twelve gods of Olympus, the heroes Perseus and Theseus and Hercules, and the monsters they went up against — twenty-five stories in all. Donna Jo Napoli tells them straight, in full literary prose that never talks down. Christina Balit's paintings run gold-flecked and glowing across whole spreads, and each myth carries a sidebar of real background on the gods and their world. It's a big, heavy book built to be dipped into a story at a time rather than read front to back.
This sits near the top of the trail because it's where a fluent reader meets the myths as literature, not as jokes. Napoli's writing runs richer and slower than the funny retellings your child may have started on, so it asks a confident reader to settle in and take their time — useful practice for the denser books ahead. Because every story comes with its own full painting, the book stays easy to pick up even when the prose is demanding, and there's no need to read it in order. A child who laughed through the lighter myths gets to feel these same stories carry their full weight.