The Illustrated Book of Myths: Tales and Legends of the World

by Neil Philip, Nilesh Mistry (Illustrator)

This illustrated book is a narrative collection of myths from every corner of the world and from many different cultures. Aimed at young people, the book contains more than 75 stories, including the great classical myths of Greece and Rome, popular Norse and Celtic myths, Egyptian Native American, Inuit and Aboriginal traditions, and tales from Africa, India, Japan, China and South America.

Genres: Mythology, Nonfiction, Childrens, Reference, History, Fairy Tales, Art

192 pages, Hardcover

First published September 9, 1995

About the author

Neil 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.

Reviews

[Abi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very important book in my intellectual development, as odd as that sounds. It was this collection that honed my interest in mythology, first piqued by The Hobbit and various other children's literature, and led me to the conclusion that I loved the Norse ones best. So from this book I delved further into Norse mythology, from there to the Icelandic Sagas, from there to Laxness and Sigur Ros and trips to Iceland and a slightly consuming passion for all things Icelandic. I have a lot for which to thank (or blame on) this book.
Anyway, about the book itself. It is engrossing if you're a junior mythology geek like I was. It goes far, far beyond the well-known Graeco-Roman stuff (although that's there too), stretching all over the globe. The myths are well written, beautifully illustrated and have background information on the different cultures down the margins. Great.

[Serena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Between 1999-2002 I stumbled across this book in my school library, this is "The Book" (ironically, I remembered more of it's title than I thought I did) and some of it's imagery stayed with me as I have studied world mythology ever since.

I couldn't find the like of those illustrations no matter where I looked, finally I got tired of not knowing. I went to the link of my old middle school, and I searched "mythology" in the library database so I had a better place to start.

There was this book "The Book", offered on Amazon.com and I took a "inside peek" and there it was, sure enough just as I remembered; a image of Re and all the Egyptian gods and goddesses, Shu and Tefnut, Nut and Geb, and Nut swallowing Re and Re wrestling with Apep - the Egyptian day and night.

Ymir the giant, and Audhumla the cow, and others, so many others it's like seeing old friends and greeting them again.

I now have my own copy of the "The Book", and am pleased that a memory I held in my heart for more than ten years was no mere myth.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my favorite books in elementary school, we had to read it for class. It encourages children to look at history and also to use their imaginations. It has been challenged in some school districts because it supposedly promotes “the use of black magic by children.” I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anything more ridiculous. You may not agree with ancient Egyptian mythology, however, you cannot say it has not had an effect on the modern day world. There is something to be said for collective cultural memory. It’s also a superbly written book. It is one that I would definitely read to my own children, if I had them.
Challenge our children, not the books!

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it as a child and loved it. Now rereading it as an adult and still loving it. Beautiful illustrations. Make you dream about other worlds.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an actually fun book to read and one that I would say has actually tested to be a better mythoi-focused book for younger readers than many others I have read. The book explores various cultures while providing samples of their stories to the reader so there is a fair amount of presentation.

At the same time the book has a great introduction that breaks the world down into cultures of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres while explaining the importance of each different group that may be found in the book, the differences and at the same time the similarities of the stories. It advises readers to remember that what we consider stories may still be someone else's truth, which I love seeing this since of the times we live in.

The stories are furthermore divided into categories based on the main trait whether it is about animals, humans, creation, destruction, etc. and from there the title of the story is given plus from which group of people it can be found. The stories also amazingly seem to keep their same tone of telling from many of the older voices, which I also loved as they keep the story much cleaner, genuine and also from sounding just like each other.

The book is both illustrated with brightly colored pictures that have captions giving the readers more information about what is being shown and also colored pictures of historical items or landscapes on the edges that came from the shared culture. These also have some educational captions so the reader can learn more if they would like or even bypass over them.

Although some of the stories do include a bit of the adult material that some parents may not wish for their children to share most of it has been quite cleaned up or left out. As a result I was disappointed not to see how they described Medusa's condition but was still appeased enough that they mentioned her as the mother of Pegasus after she had been killed.

The book does have a background for some of the gods and heroes that has a pronunciation guide for those included in this glossary. Also included are their cultural origins and a small description of who they were. There were also some partial family trees for the Norse and Greek pantheons which are massive in their actual presentations. What disappointed me on this though was the fact there were not pronunciations for all the deities and heroes mentioned so I still have no true actual idea how to pronounce Xolotl.

In the end this was a great book and one that I am going to keep. Although there were a few things I would have changed this is a book I would choose to educate children on mythoi, especially when compared to Edith Hamilton's "classic" version.

[Mantvydas Juozapavicius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Šiaip būtų visai nebloga knygutė bendram išsilavinimui (plius pabaigoj yra abėcėlinis dievų sąrašas). Tik, mano manymu, mitai sudėlioti kažkaip nesistemingai, netvarkingai.
Įgarsinimas tragiškas. Verčiau skaitykit, neklausykit.

[Melissa Barbier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book includes a plethora of information matched with illustrations to back it up. The table of contents in itself is advanced in its 3 pages. It is broken down into Creation Myths, Beginnings, Fertility and Cultivation, Gods and People, Gods and Animals, Visions in the End, and Gods and Pantheons. Each story is labeled as to which culture it belongs to, and it spans a variety of cultures such as: Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, Native American (multiple different tribes), Aboriginal Australian, Greek, Norse, Sumerian, Finnish, Polynesian, West African, Serbian, Indonesian and more. It is a very thorough collection. The book begins with an explanation of what a myth is along with a map of the different places that they come from with notes on those cultures in the map. I really enjoyed this book, but it is definitely overwhelming at first. Students would need a very solid understanding of a table of contents and how to find the information that they want before reading this book. Probably older grades from 5th to high school could use this book. Students could do so many things with this book such as create a compilation of stories from one culture within the book, compile all of a certain type of story into a shorter report, compare and contrast the stories of a certain topic among the cultures, and create picture version of the stories to teach others.

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read many myths one of them was sumerian and called gigamesh was 2/3 divine he traveled far away to discover the story of before the flood and other secrets of the world he built the city of uruk one day aruru the goddess of creation created a strong warrior named enkido to become gilgamesh's freind sadly enkido died of illness and gilgamesh set off to find out why people must die.


Illustrated Book of Myths is a great myth book full of myths from everywhere.i like it because its a little longer than the other myths and its about as good.

i would recomend this to anyone who likes myths.i might also reccomend it to people who like fantasy because they are kind of simalair

[Kaynat Zaman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mythology is my favourite subject. I always been excited about mythology ,especially Greek mythology. This book is not primarily about Greek mythology but contains stories from other mythology. I enjoy the book .

[Hanneleele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lapsepõlvelemmik!

[LaochWitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beloved book in my childhood and I've re-purchased it twice.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of myth is entertaining, treating the myths as stories rather than vehicles for learning about the people who told them. There is some context provided for the myths, such as in the chapter titles that classify myths into genres like “Beginnings” and “Gods and People”, but otherwise, this is a book of stories. Or at least, that’s how I as a kid read this book.

There is an incredibly diverse collection of myths in this book, ranging from the standard Greco-Roman to obscure Native American myths. Although there is a bit more Greco-Roman, Norse mythology, and other classical European myth than mythology from elsewhere in the world, I still enjoyed how different all the myths were. There were also some stories from extant religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism, presented as myths. That reads as a little offensive and orientalist to me, especially since Bible stories are not included.

Despite some of the flaws in this book, including how some of the stories are written dryly or how long ones like the Epic of Gilgamesh are rushed, this mythology book is a great one. It contains beautiful illustrations alongside the fascinating retold myths. When myths follow a chronology, there are little running feet pointing the way to the last or next story in the cycle. This myth book is satisfactory, and it sparked my lifelong interest in mythology.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book as a kid, and got it from the library so many times that my parents eventually bought it for me as a birthday present. The illustrations are just as wonderful as I remember them being. I'm definitely glad to still have this on my shelf.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

We have read this book and all of its stories too many times to our kid.

(It's really a great compilation. but oh man, it's very easy to trip over all of these different names when you read it outloud...)

[Trey Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book to get aquatinted with myths from around the world.

[emyrose8 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good illustrations, very readable!

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A childhood favorite rediscovered by chance. just as beautiful as it was when I first read it back in kindergarten.

[Lucas Martins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meu primeiro livro, me fez gostar de ler desde criança.

[Katarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think, this book had a lot to do with how I feel about the world. It's beautiful and I love it.

[Bhumi Ayu · Rating 5 out of 5]

a book that i stole from my school.
WORTH TO READ

[Sara K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice and fun book to learn about different mythologies around the world.

[Matthew Hyde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great illustrations and history behind ancient myths.

[Conceição Moita]

Ó

[♥Xeni♥ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adore the DK series. There are a few books in the series that are a bit worse (just badly done, or too detailed or not precise enough) but this one was not one of them!

This was my most favorite book for a really long time. I think I must have read it cover to cover at least 20 times. And I know most all of my mythology from this book.

The images are detailed and wonderful; the text is vivid and explanatory and the whole thing just makes me want to go back in time and relive the events!

I still give shivers when I see Loki as he is in the book, or when I think of Zeus and his thunderbolts! If you want a present for your kids, get this book. If you want a present for yourself, get this book. If you want to learn something, get this book. If you want to be entertained, get this book.

It's just incredible! Get this book!

[Ricardo Bizarro · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ricardo Bizarro
Traditional Lit


Philip, Neil and Mistry. The Illustrated Book Of Myths. New York: Dorling Kindersley
Publishing, Inc, 1995.

Summary: This book is divided into chapters describing different myths, tales, and
legends. For example, the chapter I read was on the creation of the earth and mankind.
There were different stories from all over the world and time periods. There were ideas
such as men derived from god’s sweat, cow milk ice, a cosmic egg, and things like that. It
was really interesting just contemplating the thought that people had such different ideas.

[Ryne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the grade that my middle-school self would have given this book. (I haven't been able to read it since then, and like one other reviewer, I was very excited and happy to see "The Book" from my memories.) This collection interested me in fantasy and mythology more than anything else at the time, and the illustrations are superb. It's also a great introduction to world mythology for those who are only familiar with, say, the Greeks.

If I get my hands on a copy, I'll come back to this review and post an update!

[Freda Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great for adults or kids. I loved it as a young atheist because all of the myths were broken up into what sort of story they were. So all of the creation myths were together, and when you read them, they all had certain similarities that it was really interesting for me to draw parallels to. I also liked it because it didn't just stick to the Roman, Greek, and Norse myths, which is often the only myths that we ever hear about. Cool pictures too. Not a good book for those who are already myth experts. This is kind of surface level stuff. Like a beginner myth book.

[Chase · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read 2 myths from this book. The sky world is about 5 kids. The eldest brother dug a hole through the cloud they were on. After 4 of them got down, the youngest sister trapped them down there. The Great Flood was about this guy who survived a flood, and had a competion where he faced another guy to see who would rule the Earth.

I gave these stories 4 stars because they were pretty good.

I would recomend this book to anyone who likes myths.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

anthology of myths. looks like it has short versions of some major myths from around the world. This book is recommended for Nicola's reading many times over the course of this first year of ancient history, however, Ryan and I agree she's not ready to be introduced to this form of literature. We'll be finding something else to replace this type of reading with for now. When we cycle around again in 4 years, I imagine she won't have any trouble with it.

[Maisan AlObaid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining book, I had so much fun reading all deferent kinds of myths though they all seem to have the same beliefs if I may say, they all believe that there is someone who is stronger then anybody else and there is two deferent powers one control the sun, life and the good well, On the other hand the diverts power is the one witch control the moon, death and the bad things in life, Overall I think its a great book witch can offer you a glimpse of other cultures.