A Man Who Has the Gods Against Him

The Odyssey retold by Robin Lister is a fantastic, amazing, exciting book.

It the sequel to The Illiad which I have not yet read, but am going to read soon. However you could read The Odyssey on its own.

It is about a man who is coming back from the Trojan war. His name is Odysseus. Odysseus has many adventures against the gods. He has got onto the wrong side of the god Poseidon, god of the water, and faces many battles. They include him meeting ghosts and meeting a cyclops. A cyclops is a giant with one eye.

He gets ship-wrecked a couple of times, however he still manages to make new boats.

The book is a retelling of an ancient Greek poem written by someone called Homer. I loved the way Robin Lister rewrote it, because he made everything seem so real. It had a lot of description of the characters so you really got to know them well. Every word was so well chosen.

The Odyssey is a book that it's worth reading a couple of different versions, you could never get bored.

My favourite bit was when all the suitors - the people who had been trying to marry his wife - held a competition where they had to string Odysseus's bow and shoot the arrow. None of the suitors could do it, but he could. It proved that Odysseus, even though he was undercover pretending to be a weak old man, was still the strongest.

I learned about the Trojan War from this book and how the Trojans stole someone's wife called Helen.

I also very much liked the illustrations which were done by Alan Baker. They helped you understand the story.

I give this book five out of five stars and recommend it for seven plus. I read it by myself. Some of it was a little bit difficult but I did understand it.