Has anyone skipped the Odyssey for 1st grade?

[K&Rs Mom]

K is VERY sensitive, so I'm thinking the monsters & such will scare her. This is the child who jumped into my lap to hide when Curious George fell overboard in the movie. :rolleyes: OTOH, this story is such a big part of Greek lit, I'd hate to skip it altogether. We did read Black Ships Before Troy about a year ago, and that didn't bother her much, but much less "supernatural" in that story. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Mama Lynx]

Your child will be fine if you save the Odyssey until later :) There's plenty of time!

[AllSmiles]

I think if you feel that the story would be too intense for your child, you should skip it. There will be plenty of time to cover this story :)

[chai]

Wow! Black Ships Before Troy would have scared my 5-year-old. There are many simpler versions in the library; I would look for one of those if you really want to read it. I did that, but I still skipped parts of the book that I thought were too scary.

 

On the other hand, there are plenty of other great books to read to 5-year-olds and it won't hurt her at all to wait another couple of years.

[Kimber]

My dd9 is very, very sensitive as well--no Harry Potter here. Movies and books on tape are much worse than books. Maybe this will be the with your dd. My dd9 was afraid of the Chicken Little Movie when the aliens showed up. She's afraid of NOVA. She can't listen to the music. It makes her think aliens. So no one in our house can watch NOVA. And that is almost all that the PBS station carries.

 

If she listens to the Chronicles of Narnia, it has to be during the day. At night time she becomes scared of the sound effects.

 

HTH!

[Pam in MA]

I would think it would depend on what you're going to read for K. I can't imagine you'd have too much luck trying to read the original Odyssey to a first grader, but there are lots of retellings for younger children. You've already read Black Ships Before Troy and I believe another by the same author is The Wanderings of Odysseus. We loved it (1st and 4th graders at the time) but there are many retellings if you search your library.

[K&Rs Mom]

I would think it would depend on what you're going to read for K. I can't imagine you'd have too much luck trying to read the original Odyssey to a first grader, but there are lots of retellings for younger children. You've already read Black Ships Before Troy and I believe another by the same author is The Wanderings of Odysseus. We loved it (1st and 4th graders at the time) but there are many retellings if you search your library.

 

You're right, I wasn't going to attempt the original just yet.... Most of the retellings, though, are illustrated, and it seems like the visual is going to be that much more scary for her (just her personality).

 

Thanks, everyone, for the reassurance - I think maybe we'll just have to hit this one on the next cycle through history.

[Closeacademy]

The Odyessey is a bit much. My girls couldn't even get into any of the versions of this story.

 

They did like Rosemary Well's Max and Ruby versions of some of the Myths. They also really enjoyed The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus by Aliki. It is basically the story of the birth of the Gods as told in Jason in the Argonauts. Each page has a beautiful picture and a nice short version of a story about that God or Goddess. My youngest fell in love with this book and all the pretty pictures.

 

With this you get a nice introduction to the mythology without dealing with a lot of the blood.

[Karen in CO]

I read the Mary Pope Osborne version to my dd at that age. It doesn't have very many pictures and is more like a beginning chapter book. She loved it. It is less intense than Black Ships Before Troy.

 

Just something to consider but you know your child best.

[Chris in VA]

Have you seen Mary Pope Osborne's version of The Odyssey? You might enjoy that one. It's much less intense, but still has a lot of the action--

Or, just skip it. That's perfectly ok.

I second the Aliki book, and you can get lots of other beautiful picture books on individual Greek myths. You can also tie in some astronomy by learning several constellations and their myths.

I think it's much more intense to show a film than read a book. My own ds (now 18 and a huge fan of the Odyssey!) was terrified by the first 5 minutes ofThe Neverending Story. Never did get to watch it!

[K&Rs Mom]

Is this the Osborne one? http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Odyssey-One-Eyed-Giant-Book/dp/0786809280/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200936314&sr=8-1

 

I hadn't heard of it before, but it sounds like it might be a little better text-wise. Even the cover pic is kind of scary, though. Hopefully I'll get to B&N this week to take a look. Thanks for the info!

[King Alfred Academy]

Have you seen Mary Pope Osborne's version of The Odyssey? You might enjoy that one. It's much less intense, but still has a lot of the action-

 

My ds 4 and I thought this was fantastic, however, I have a very sensitive ds6 and we listened to it on CD and it scared him. Maybe it was more intense having someone else narrating than me, but he is okay listening to it now as long I we skip the cyclops part and the part with the monster with 6 (?) arms that reaches out and grabs the men off the ship. I definitely recommend these for later though.

[Karen in CO]

That is the right one, there are few inside pictures and they are b&w.

[Brenda in FL]

Instead we read the Puffin Classic by Geraldine McCaughrey. This was with my first grader and 4 yo and even the 4 yo was interested enough to sit and listen. I may also have "edited" a few places as well.

 

One funny is that they were each illustrating the Caterpillar poem for first language lessons while I was reading about the cyclops. I think the back sides of those papers both have one-eyed monsters drawn on them!