The Trojan Horse

February 1, 1989
Gr 2-4 -This basic vocabulary treatment presents the Trojan War on a scale that is less than epic. The plodding present-tense voice and pedestrian style are almost definitive in the way in which they bland the story out. "The chariots race around the battlefield. The Greeks chase the Trojans. The Trojans chase the Greeks." Little's fall of Troy has all of the excitement (and none of the tension) of being stuck in traffic for two hours. A much better treatment of the destruction of Troy, both in text and illustration, is James Reeves' The Trojan Horse (Watts, 1968; o.p.). Reeves maintains the Homeric narrative in a less edited form: including, for example, the death of Laacoon, which Little omits. Reeves' first-person voice creates the vivid, immediate, and dramatic effects so suitable, even necessary, to the epicand so glaringly absent from Little's bleached, textbook prose. The illustrations are representational but bland, done primarily in shades of brown, buff, and gold with touches of blue and red. The bare bones of Homer's epic is here, but it is not presented in a style that will inspire young readers. Ann Welton, Lake Dollof Elementary School, Auburn, Wash.