Reviewer: Connie Payne
Title: Pandora Gets Jealous - 1st in the Pandora series
Author: Carolyn Hennesy
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN-13: 9781599902913 (Paperback)
Release Date: December 2008 (Reprint)
Genre/Sub-genre: Youth Historical Mythological fiction
Publisher’s Age/Grade Recommendation: 9-12
OUAR’s Age/Grade Recommendation: 9-12
Year/Setting: Ancient Greece and Delphi
Overall rating: 4.25
Carolyn's Website: www.carolynhennesy.com/pandora.html
Pandy (Pandora Atheneus Andromaeche Helena, daughter of Prometheus) is in some serious trouble...
She’s known about a school project--the enduring presence of the gods in daily life--for oh, about two moons now and she hasn’t even started it yet. And it’s due tomorrow! What is she going to do? What is she going to say? What is she going to bring? She can’t take her father’s liver again, everyone’s seen it like a hundred times. She could take her mother’s precious paycheck jewelry, given to her by Zeus himself, that’s an enduring presence in her life. But no, Zeus employs too many women; it’s common to see paycheck jewelry worn around Athens.
Quite by accident she comes across a familiar looking box. Oh, yes, it was entrusted to her father by Zeus. A box she’s supposed to stay away from, never touch, never open. If opened, havoc, chaos, and sadness will be unleashed upon man.
Of course! What better project than to take the box, never opening it of course, and tell the tale of how it came to be in her father’s possession showing the gods enduring presence in everyone’s lives? If she plans it right, no one will ever know she took it!
Whew! It worked! She left the entire school stunned with her presentation. Even her best friends Alcie and Iole were impressed.
But wait, here comes more trouble. If Helen and Hippia, two of the most popular and snotty girls in school, hadn’t stopped Pandy and her friends, teasing and taunting, bribing Pandy into letting them touch the box, well, she would have gotten it home and hidden and no one would have known--except for the hundreds of people she stunned with her presentation that is--and the seven evils wouldn’t have escaped the box spewing nastiness on the world, including Alcie and Iole!
Pandy’s in TROUBLE. Zeus has called her and her family before him and the council of the gods and has given her, alone, the task of retrieving each of the seven evils within six moons. If not, well, let’s not talk about such horrendous punishments that await her...let’s wish Pandy well on her trek to finding Jealousy, let’s hope Pandy and Alcie and Iole don’t encounter too much danger or evil along the way.
My thoughts and feelings about Pandora Gets Jealous were varied. Initially, while quite understandable in presentation, I felt the story was clogged with descriptions of the gods and back-story and slowed its progression. But they were necessary to the series as a whole, without them the reader would be lost…It doesn’t take long before the story picks up at a sweeping pace taking the reader along on Pandora’s long adventurous trek.
Pandora and her friends are typical tweens, wanting to be grown up and out of a "training girdle," liking boys, moaning about babysitting a younger sibling who has a tail, dreading a visit from the "tooth physician." Any young reader will be able to relate to them and their dilemmas and frustrations. While being highly entertaining, Ms. Hennesy subtlety weaves lessons and little reminders into Pandora’s story from the very beginning.
Bravo, Ms. Hennesy! Pandora Gets Jealous is nothing short of clever, imaginative, fun, and exciting. A book to enthrall any young "maiden."
Connie
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