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DK Eyewitness Books
Mythology
Enter a world of myth and magic. Follow the adventures of Mighty Aphrodite, Heroic Hercules and Awesome Apollo - super-heroes of long ago! This book contains everything you need to know about anything to do with Mythology and great for project work.
73 pages, Paperback
First published April 8, 1999
14 people are currently reading
399 people want to read
About the author
Neil Philip
122 books36 followersNeil Philip is a writer, folklorist and poet. He is married to the artist Emma Bradford, and lives in the Cotswolds, England. Neil loves words, poetry, and the art of storytelling in all its forms. Among his many books are A Fine Anger, Victorian Village Life, The Cinderella Story, The Penguin Book of English Folktales, Mythology (with Philip Wilkinson), The Great Mystery, War and the Pity of War, The New Oxford Book of Childrens Verse, The Tale of Sir Gawain, Horse Hooves & Chicken Feet, and The Adventures of Odysseus. Neil has contributed to numerous journals, including The Times, and Signal: Approaches to Childrens Books, and has also written for stage, screen, and radio. His work has won numerous awards and honours, including the Aesop Award of the American Folklore Society and the Literary Criticism Book Award of the Childrens Literature Association. Outside of the storied world, Neil is passionate about cats, art, music, France, food & wine, and friendship.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
January 17, 2023
Couldn't recommend a better introduction to mythology.
Covers many cultures and beginnings from around the world. Each is given a small introductory write up that encourages the reader to go and explore them in their own time.
I would recommend this for all ages; however I think it would be particularly enjoyable for the 8–15-year-old age range. Once again, it's a great introduction to this fascinating area and bound to encourage a healthy interest in history and other cultures.
Covers many cultures and beginnings from around the world. Each is given a small introductory write up that encourages the reader to go and explore them in their own time.
I would recommend this for all ages; however I think it would be particularly enjoyable for the 8–15-year-old age range. Once again, it's a great introduction to this fascinating area and bound to encourage a healthy interest in history and other cultures.
February 8, 2016
OK I know these are supposed to be kid books but they are awesome! Great pictures and just enough text to make you want to learn more. Great choices for a beginning history reader or to start an older reader out in a new area. Every time I pick one of these up and read it I learn new things. Highly Recommended
September 9, 2022
This book is amazing. It is a "get a good overview" of all the world's different cultures and beliefs, with delightful pictures and rich folklore.
Usually, mythology books focus on just one culture, but this one gives you a taste of all cultures and is a must have for mythology lovers.
Usually, mythology books focus on just one culture, but this one gives you a taste of all cultures and is a must have for mythology lovers.
February 6, 2016
A easy, quick read. I liked learning about Mythology from around the world because you usually only hear about Greek and Roman mythology in mainstream media. The one thing I didn't really like in this book was I felt like the European Mythology was talked about a lot more than any of the other areas of the world.
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October 26, 2015Excellent research book.
August 11, 2020
529 - 2020
January 1, 2023
This is a great overview of mythology. The book I am reading has a different cover than the one posted on here. This is great for children, youth, and beginner adults. It gives an overview rather than detailed stories about each mythology or people.
The only thing I thought was strange was they put in the Christian bible and the story of Adam and Eve as a myth and read it literally rather than symbolically, but that could be that I am Christian and don't view it this way.
Otherwise it was a great overview.
The only thing I thought was strange was they put in the Christian bible and the story of Adam and Eve as a myth and read it literally rather than symbolically, but that could be that I am Christian and don't view it this way.
Otherwise it was a great overview.
December 24, 2018
This books cover at various concepts of mythology, such as the Cosmos, Creation of the World, Fertility and Birth, Super heroes, Animal idols, Sacred sites and many more. Each concept has a two page overview, containing examples of mythology from various cultures and countries. It also contains pictures of objects and illustrations of the concepts being explained. It's a short book, but it's useful introductory guide to mythology.
August 7, 2023
A good introduction and review of mythology of diverse cultures. I counted about 16 including Aborigines, African, Inuit, Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese, Native American, Hindu, Christianity, Polynesian, Greek, Celtic, Roman, Norse, Japanese, and Persian. One thing that was frustrating was the format. I wish it would have been categorized by Continent. It was all over the place but still has great content. A light read, too.
December 29, 2017
The Eyewitness books are a great, kid friendly introduction to topics with many illustrations! They tend to be broad, in this case touching on many different mythologies from across the world.
It is organized by topic "Creation Myths", "Animals and Plants", "Heroes and Tricksters" NOT by place of origin "Greek Gods", "Egyptian Myths", etc. This book is great because it allows the reader to see similarities across mythologies, and to perhaps determine what mythology they are interested in looking deeper into!
Also, there is a really useful index in the back if you want to just read up on one or two particular mythologies! I used it to hone in on any Norse god/myth mentions.
It is organized by topic "Creation Myths", "Animals and Plants", "Heroes and Tricksters" NOT by place of origin "Greek Gods", "Egyptian Myths", etc. This book is great because it allows the reader to see similarities across mythologies, and to perhaps determine what mythology they are interested in looking deeper into!
Also, there is a really useful index in the back if you want to just read up on one or two particular mythologies! I used it to hone in on any Norse god/myth mentions.
November 24, 2023
A great introduction to mythology. It gives equal weight to many different cultures, and contains interesting pictures that are related to the myths. Like many other DK Eyewitness books, this one is great for learning about the topic in question. I liked reading it a lot.
December 21, 2017
Read it. 2.5. I liked all the images and the wide variety of myths covered, but it was so disjointed. A hodge lodge of fun and interesting facts but not enough of any one thing.
November 8, 2018
Overall I really enjoyed this book. I learned a lot about mythology and cultures from all over the world.
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March 25, 2022Lo pongo en lugar de la Nueva Enciclopedia Visual de Clarín, de 21 tomos, contándolo como la sección de mitología.
September 15, 2017
The production of this book was wonderful, which is what made me pick it up despite being well outside the intended demographic. I love mythology books, and d'Aulaire's Greek Myths is still one of my favorite books, so I figured this one looked promising.
The good: There are beautiful photographs and color illustrations in this book, and in ways it reminded me a lot of the DK Eyewitness books in formatting. It also tries to cover a lot of different mythologies around the world, including some interesting stories I hadn't heard of at all, like the southeast Asian sections, or even some of the more obscure deities mentioned in the Egypt section.
The less good: There's not really enough time to cover anything in any useful detail, and some sections are really lopsided (e.g. Greece/Rome). I also read like 8 pages about Japanese mythology, and then got to China, which had maybe half of the time dedicated to it. I'll admit I'm personally biased but it was really surprising to me that the Japanese section was comparatively so long? China has at least as much mythology. The real problem, then, was that it felt like the Chinese section was especially rushed.
The bad: On top of that, knowing a lot of Chinese myth myself, a lot of the statements in that section seemed inaccurate to me, or certain wrong implications were made. Basically, the things I knew to be wrong in the China section led me to question the accuracy of everything else.
tl;dr: This book did cover a lot of mythologies outside of the typical Greek/Roman/Egyptian circle, but not in much detail, and I struggled to trust that the synopses were accurate.
The good: There are beautiful photographs and color illustrations in this book, and in ways it reminded me a lot of the DK Eyewitness books in formatting. It also tries to cover a lot of different mythologies around the world, including some interesting stories I hadn't heard of at all, like the southeast Asian sections, or even some of the more obscure deities mentioned in the Egypt section.
The less good: There's not really enough time to cover anything in any useful detail, and some sections are really lopsided (e.g. Greece/Rome). I also read like 8 pages about Japanese mythology, and then got to China, which had maybe half of the time dedicated to it. I'll admit I'm personally biased but it was really surprising to me that the Japanese section was comparatively so long? China has at least as much mythology. The real problem, then, was that it felt like the Chinese section was especially rushed.
The bad: On top of that, knowing a lot of Chinese myth myself, a lot of the statements in that section seemed inaccurate to me, or certain wrong implications were made. Basically, the things I knew to be wrong in the China section led me to question the accuracy of everything else.
tl;dr: This book did cover a lot of mythologies outside of the typical Greek/Roman/Egyptian circle, but not in much detail, and I struggled to trust that the synopses were accurate.
December 19, 2019
its interesting to learn about the myths of the world and how many cultures have myths. A good part was at the beginning. when they said that they had so many gods and goddesses in Egyptian religion that they had a goddess of the door nob or hinge it was one of those two. Through out this book they tell so many tells and story's of the worlds gods and they all are so interesting and unique to their religion and some even tie together.
In all this book is very interesting to read and if you like learning about mythology then this is an amazing book for you. Personally I have learned a lot of things from mythology from this book. In my history class we are studying Greek mythology right now and the subject is so interesting to me because the mythology helped them understand why certain things happen like why there is dew in the morning on the plants and why people cry or why the sun rises.
I recommend getting the audio books for mythology if you dont like to read like me. It would be easier to read with an audio book because I have a lot of work to do most of the time and I usually need something to listen to and these books are great for that. In all this book was very interesting and I recommend reading it if you have nothing else to do
In all this book is very interesting to read and if you like learning about mythology then this is an amazing book for you. Personally I have learned a lot of things from mythology from this book. In my history class we are studying Greek mythology right now and the subject is so interesting to me because the mythology helped them understand why certain things happen like why there is dew in the morning on the plants and why people cry or why the sun rises.
I recommend getting the audio books for mythology if you dont like to read like me. It would be easier to read with an audio book because I have a lot of work to do most of the time and I usually need something to listen to and these books are great for that. In all this book was very interesting and I recommend reading it if you have nothing else to do
February 11, 2018
Although I rated this a 4 star book, I have to add a caveat. It's not a book I would recommend reading cover to cover, but it is a useful resource book for mythology from around the world.
The opening pages give an overview of mythology - its connection to science, its connection to religion, and some of the common archetypes of types of myths out there. The rest of the book is divided into chapters by regions of the world, taking on various ancient and modern groups' mythology systems and celebrations of ritual. There is a chunk of pages devoted to ancient civilizations - Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse - but I also appreciated the delve into South American, North American Indian, African, and Oceanic cultures that have/had their own belief systems.
Although I don't plan to buy this book, I took copious notes from it for my future world mythology high school teaching unit, and it was an excellent jumping-off point to inspire more research as I make that mythology unit more inclusive.
The opening pages give an overview of mythology - its connection to science, its connection to religion, and some of the common archetypes of types of myths out there. The rest of the book is divided into chapters by regions of the world, taking on various ancient and modern groups' mythology systems and celebrations of ritual. There is a chunk of pages devoted to ancient civilizations - Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse - but I also appreciated the delve into South American, North American Indian, African, and Oceanic cultures that have/had their own belief systems.
Although I don't plan to buy this book, I took copious notes from it for my future world mythology high school teaching unit, and it was an excellent jumping-off point to inspire more research as I make that mythology unit more inclusive.
January 19, 2012
I checked this book out of the library to get a broad overview on Mythology and got a much more broad view than I expected. Overall I found the book very enjoyable but it took me a lot longer to read/absorb than I am used to with my books. There were lots of great pictures and just a teasing taste of each item described. I don't feel like I learned much of anything but its a good book to whet your appetite and give you more focus on what you would like to learn regarding mythology. I recommend for readers of any age as an introduction to mythology.
October 20, 2024
Covering multiple concepts of mythology, this Eyewitness provides a decent overview to multiple mythology and folklore. Highly informative and covers known and obscure tales from all around the world, no culture is ignored in this book. The text is easy enough that children and adults who are getting into mythological tales.
February 14, 2016
While this is meant to be an overview I thought it was too brief. I found it really hard to retain useful information even though I was reading it for fun. It is perfect for someone who just wants the least amount of information but wants to know something.
January 6, 2017
if you have kids, teach kids, or have any influence in the local library this DK Eyewitness series is a must. it is easy to use, broken into kid size bites, and has very cool pictures. a perfect home reference collection for any household with children!
April 23, 2020
Este livro é muito interessante, mas julgo que um pouco inconsistente, pois mistura mitologia com antropologia, especialmente para as áreas do mundo para as quais o autor não sabia tanto sobre temas mitológicos.
Em todo o caso, é um livro didáctico e educativo, pelo que vale a pena lê-lo.
Em todo o caso, é um livro didáctico e educativo, pelo que vale a pena lê-lo.
March 28, 2021
Satu lagi buku dari siri Eyewitness. Saya baca selepas buku Crystal & Gem. Yang ini lagi Lawak dengan macam-macam cerita myths. Tentang bagaimana dunia dijadikan, siapa yang menjadikan, the first being, all sorts of gods. Iya lah banyak myths berdasarkan banyaknya jenis manusia.
April 28, 2009
Very impressive pictures, very nice description! :) I like this.
February 24, 2012
a breif broad relation of artifacts, pictures, and stories that make up world mythology
a good early resource
a good early resource
October 24, 2013
social studies supplementary material for the classroom. mythology world wide
September 28, 2011
Because I love history and mythology I loved this book so much because it explained the mythology of many ancient kingdoms such as; the Vikings, Mesopotamian, Egyptians, Persians, and many more.
May 2, 2012
One of best ones so far, but yet again very short on details. I would go for National Geographic Bible of Mythology.
December 8, 2016
I think this book is good if you in Mythology in class this is rally good for that
August 4, 2017
Research has officially begun! Love this book for a starting point.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews