Dr Dr Lisa Dunbar Solas is an archaeologist and educator who runs the Ancient Explorer program in Adelaide, South Australia. She’s interested in the overlap between the ancient world and modern thought, for adults, and for children, and we’ve been lucky enough to have her writing entries for the Our Mythical Childhood survey. Here, she writes of her experiences surveying some of the Asterix books–the famous French comics by Goscinny and Uderzo, which have drawn so many young readers to think about the ancient world.
Over the past six months, I have been exploring the classical world with the help of Asterix and his side-kick, Obelix. In fact, I have been reading and analysing some of Asterix’ adventures as part of the Our Mythical Childhood Project. This international project is providing invaluable insights into how myth helps our youth.
What is the Mythical Childhood Project?
Our Mythical Childhood is an international project that is bringing together researchers from different disciplines, including English. Led by Professor Katarzyna Marciniak from the University of Warsaw, Poland, the project includes researchers from the United Kingdom, Israel, Cameroon and Australia.
The project explores classical myths and their influence in our tech-savvy, modern world. In particular, it explores their influence on our youth. While our world is vastly different from that of the ancient Gauls, Greeks and Romans, classical myths contain themes and topics we can all relate to. Myths can act as a moral guide, helping us to reflect on experiences and issues.
The Mythical Survey
In Australia, Dr Elizabeth Hale from the University of New England, Armidale, is leading the project in the Asia-Pacific region. Dr Hale is conducting a survey of literature and multi-media for children and adolescents. This survey will help us understand how classical literature is passed on to our younger generations and how it helps guide them into adulthood.
To date, more than 350 researchers have contributed to Our Mythical Childhood Survey and 1150 entries have already been completed.
Exploring the Classical World with the Help of Asterix
Since mid 2020, I have been reading and analysing a range of texts, including several Asterix compilations. Recently, my first two entries have been added to the survey’s online database and these come from Asterix Omnibus 6. I invite you to read my entries for The Mansions of the Gods and The Asterix and the Laurel Wreath.
I thank Dr Hale for the wonderful opportunity to contribute to the survey. I am also grateful to Asterix and Obelix. By reading their adventure, I have learnt so much about the Ancient Rome and its relationships with the Gauls, especially during the Gallic Wars.
The next entries will come from the Spanish-speaking world and will include reimagining of famous Greek legends, such as the Odyssey by Homer. Stay tuned!
Thanks, Lisa!
Check out Lisa’s work on the Ancient Explorer program, here.
As you probably know, Australia is suffering from a horrific bushfire situation. It’s been building for some time, and will go on for some time yet. In the New England Tablelands, where Armidale and the University of New England are, the drought has bitten hard, though a little rain over Christmas has helped a bit. It all feels a bit bleak.
Until one hears of endeavours like this: the Authors for Fireys campaign, in which the warm-hearted community of children’s and young adult authors band together to raise money to help firefighters.
Authors for Fireys is a charity auction, in which authors offer works, experiences, and advice. It’s run through Twitter. Authors make their offer through Twitter. You reply to bid, and then when your bid is accepted, you send the appropriate money to the CFA, and the receipt to the author, who in turn makes arrangement for delivery of the relevant item/service. Great idea, and an imaginative way for the literary community to contribute.
I’m watching with admiration as authors and illustrators from around the world, but especially Australia, make offers, and will certainly be bidding. Thank you.
There are many glorious picture books published in Australia, and Once there was a boyis on of them. It’s a seemingly simple book that stays in the mind for a long time. It is by a wonderful artist, Dub Leffler, who is descended from the Bigambul and Mandandanji people of South-West Queensland, and who grew up in Quirindi, not far from Armidale. He has worked with luminaries such as Shaun Tan and Banksy, and in Once there was a boy, he has created a lovely piece of storytelling that recasts a whole lot of invasion narratives into a simple fable about a boy who lives alone on an island, and a girl who visits without invitation, eats his fruit, sleeps in his bed, and breaks his heart.
Once there was a boy (image courtesy of Magabala Books)
I’ve put this book on the syllabus for my summer class Introduction to Literature through Children’s Books, because I want to talk about how intertextuality, adaptation and retelling work in storytelling. Once there was a boy, in which I can see echoes of the myth of Pandora, the folktale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Telltale Heart, the Perrault recording of the Bluebeard story, and more. It’s a really clever book–simple, rich, and resonant., with exquisite artwork.
Dub Leffler (image courtesy of Magabala Books)
How far do we go with influence-chasing, however? It’s something I’ll be discussing with the class: intertextuality is appealing, but only if it’s meaningful, and one can end up down a rabbit-hole of references and parallels which go well beyond what the author intends, or wants to acknowledge.
That said, Once there was a boy offers a take on the Pandora myth that points to its place as a cautionary ‘don’t touch’ tale. A curious little girl, who has invited herself in to the boy’s island home, looks under the bed (despite being told not to), and deals with the consequences of her actions.
The original Pandora myth ends with the discovery of Hope, trapped in the famous box, operating as a balm for the ills of the world that have been released on first opening.
Where does Hope lie in Once there was a boy? I think it resides in the actions of the little girl, who reflects on what she has done, and makes a profound gesture in order to heal and reconcile, giving her own heart to the little boy. It’s possible to read this book as a reflection on colonisation, whereby the girl represents the naive intrusion of colonisers, and the boy represents the place and people they dislodge and disrupt. Once there was a boy has a strong resonance in relation to the power structures of post-colonial Australia. Leffler doesn’t dwell on the challenges and problematics of reconciliation and reparation, but the meaning is clear: for true reconciliation to occur, acts of reparation need to take place.
Geoffrey McSkimming’s the author of the dashing Cairo Jim series, which I’ll be talking about on Saturday at the Our Mythical History conference in Warsaw this week. In fact, the conference has begun, but while my colleagues are considering how children’s literature engages with the history of classical antiquity, I’m stuck in my hotel room nursing a lovely cold, and hacking cough. I sound a bit like Cairo Jim’s learned friend, Brenda the Wonder-Camel, who intones quaooo whenever she has a deep thought.
Anyway, as part of my preparation for this conference, I was recently delighted to interview Geoffrey, whose books are really entertaining and funny, and show how fun and scholarship can coexist in interesting stories for children of all ages. And I’m looking forward to sharing his work with the Warsaw audience. Geoffrey’s work can be found at geoffreymcskimming.com, cairojim.com, and 9diamondspress.com. And the good news is that a new Cairo Jim novel is due out soon…
Here’s what we talked about.
What drew you to writing archaeological adventure stories? How did you develop your particular literary style/idiom/aesthetic for your works inspired by Classical Antiquity?
I’ve always loved history and story, especially the classic myths. I was bitten by the Egyptology bug when I was a child and years later I took my first overseas trip, venturing to Africa and finishing up in Egypt. Here I was overwhelmed by the history and the mystery of this country and, after getting sunstroke in the Valley of the Kings, I came up with the world of Cairo Jim and his friends and adventures.
The Cairo Jim chronicles proved to be an excellent avenue for me to explore many of the classical myths, and also those pockets of history where things have become forgotten. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being able to put my own interpretations on what might have happened in the past, when we are now unsure of the actual events.
When I wrote the Cairo Jim stories I visited many of the locations and ancient sites featured in the chronicles. I spent countless hours in archaeological museums and wandering around crumbling ruins; visiting remote jungle areas and isolated Greek islands; climbing pyramids in Mexico and scaling the insides of them in Egypt. I lived and breathed the air breathed by the characters in my stories and I immersed myself in the ancient tales and myths that took place at these places. In these ways I suppose my literary style and idiom developed, with a healthy dose of outrageous humour and relentless irreverence which have defined much of my life.
Geoffrey McSkimming
The Cairo Jim books — 19 in all — were written and published over a period of nearly twenty years, and during that time I was able to explore many concepts to do with history and legend. Classical antiquity fuelled much of the world of Cairo Jim; it’s a world to which he’s passionately devoted. I think the series found its legs with the fourth story, Cairo Jim and the Alabastron of Forgotten Gods, which explores the concept of the disposability of big concepts, in this case being an entire belief system. What happened to cause the people of the time to abandon the Titan gods and take up the Olympians? It’s a mystery that Cairo Jim stumbles upon and one that he must solve before the world as we know it comes crashing down …
Where does the inspiration for Brenda the Wonder Camel come from? (She is my favourite character—I aspire to be as good a scholar as she).
Brenda developed firstly as a plot device: she was an excellent way to inject information into the narrative (a Wonder Camel who, as a young calf, accidentally consumed all twenty-seven volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica and then retained every bit of knowledge from those tomes is worth her weight in gold!). But it was when I visited a school, shortly after Cairo Jim in Search of Martenarten was published, that I realised how valuable a character – indeed, how valuable all characters in a story – could be. A girl at this school, a student in Year Five, said to me that she really enjoyed the story, but there was one bit she didn’t like. It was the bit when Jim and Doris the macaw went down underground to enter the tomb of the pharaoh Martenarten, leaving Brenda behind, up on the ground. This young girl said to me (and the words changed the course of the chronicles): ‘In my experience, it’s always the quiet ones who get left out.’ Her words struck at my very soul, and I realised for the first time how important characters are to readers. Because of that girl, Brenda the Wonder Camel developed through the years with a wisdom and a quiet, strong presence she may not otherwise have had.
Why do you think classical / ancient myths, history, and literature continue to resonate with young audiences?
Because, with classical / ancient myths, the stories are rich and powerful and they’re filled with great characters. And they’re not afraid to push boundaries and show scallywags behaving naughtily. I also love sharing other stories and other writers with younger readers; hence Doris the macaw is frequently quoting from Shakespeare (and Mr. Shakespeare even appears in Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror). And Phyllis Wong encounters Mary Shelley and the whole world of the creation of Frankenstein in Phyllis Wong and the Girl who Danced with Lightning. I love literary resonance, and sharing these things – I find that exciting. Stories can build on stories, and if that happens respectfully, the foundations of storytelling can only become stronger.
Do you have a background in classical education (Latin or Greek at school or classes at the University?) What sources are you using? Scholarly work? Wikipedia? Are there any books that made an impact on you in this respect?
When I started writing the chronicles, the internet wasn’t around, so my research was undertaken in libraries and museums and through as much travel as I could afford. I read many old volumes of classical myth and legend, which I still have in my collection. Also on my reading lists were books by explorers like Richard Halleburton, F W Schnitger, Percy Fawcett and others. And Evelyn Waugh’s travel books were a source of inspiration, especially for the times during which he made his trips.
Did you think about how aspects Classical Antiquity (myth, history) would translate for young readers?
Not greatly. I suppose the fact that so many of the stories from Classical Antiquity are such strong and entertaining stories, and that they still hold the attention after so many centuries, means that the stories continue to have real currency, and are ripe to be interpreted in stories such as mine.
One thing I try to share with young readers is my experiences of being in the places where the ancient stories played out: describing, for example, the smells of an ancient place and the appearance of the crumbling ruins as evocatively as I can, so that the readers can get a vivid sense of the setting and thus place themselves in the story, ancient or modern. In Cairo Jim at the Crossroads of Orpheus I recreated the House of the Perfumer at Pompeii after spending a lot of quiet time visitng the site, and I tried to evoke the ancient and the modern mystery of that place through the descriptions.
Are you planning any further forays into classical material?
The series I’m writing at present, the Phyllis Wong Mysteries, do use classical material in some of the stories. In Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard, the legends of Myrddin (Merlin) come to life when a sinister figure from the past tries to lure the great wizard into the present to bring down civilisation as we know it …
Anything else you think we should know?
Two things: 1. A brand new Cairo Jim story is coming soon, and 2. licorice and Gruyère cheese don’t go well together.
Noted! Thanks very much, Geoffrey—we look forward to the new CJ novel.
Last week I had the pleasure to meet Stella Tarakson, the author of the delightful Hopeless Heroes series. They’re chapter books for primary school kids, and feature the adventures of a boy called Tim, who accidentally invokes the hero Heracles, when he breaks his mother’s favourite vase. Mayhem and mischief ensue–Heracles is strong but needs direction, and Hera and Hermes are continually meddling. (The first few books are written up in the Our Mythical Childhood survey …)
Tarakson is from Sydney, Australia. Her parents emigrated from Greece, and she talked with me about how the Greek myths resonated for her as a child, and now as a storyteller. It was fascinating to hear her thoughts, and to think about the different ways that Greek myth travels around the world–to the Southern Hemisphere and back again. Tarakson’s books are published by a British publisher, though I like to think a bit of Aussie quirk has made its way into them through her gently irreverent take on the heroic legends.
Hopeless Heroes, by Stella Tarakson, illustrated by Nick Roberts
What drew you to writing the Hopeless Heroes stories? How did you develop your particular literary style/idiom/aesthetic for your works inspired by Classical Antiquity?
Being the daughter of Greek migrants, I’ve grown up on a steady diet of Greek mythology. When I was very young, my father used to tell me many of the tales – I suppose he was continuing the great oral tradition of our ancestors! Books came next, and I’m lucky to still have most of them. My parents were very keen to pass their culture and identity on to their children, especially in a new country far from home. Now that my own children are growing, I also feel the need to ‘pass it on’, keeping the link alive for future generations. I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to share these stories with a wider audience, and it’s wonderful to have readers from all around the world enjoying my books! My literary style is not traditional, though. I’ve also grown up with a love of British comedy, which comes out quite strongly in the Hopeless Heroes series.
Why do you think classical / ancient myths, history, and literature continue to resonate with young audiences?
The myths continue to resonate with young audiences because we’ve never lost our fascination with monsters and heroes. Greek mythology is filled with passion and excitement, the characters are larger than life, and there are continuing parallels with our lives today. The human condition hasn’t changed in thousands of years and I don’t think it ever will.
Do you have a background in classical education (Latin or Greek at school or classes at the University?) What sources are you using? Scholarly work? Wikipedia? Are there any books that made an impact on you in this respect?
I don’t have a classical education – I have degrees in Economics and Law from the University of Sydney – but I’ve always been interested in the classics. Once I started writing Hopeless Heroes, I decided I wanted to learn more. I’ve re-enrolled at USyd part-time and I’ve been studying ancient history and classical archaeology. It’s wonderful to be able to study something purely out of interest! My main source is Barry Powell’s Classical Myth published by Pearson. I also like the website www.theoi.com. And before I go on, I’ve got to say how thrilled I am to be invited to be part of your Mythical Childhood study. It’s an honour.
Did you think about how aspects of Classical Antiquity (myth, history) would translate for young readers?
As you know, many Greek myths are rather Adult Only. I had to think very carefully about how to be age-appropriate, while staying as true to the myths as possible. I avoided the bloodier tales, and edged carefully around sexual issues. For instance, Hera hates Hercules (yes, I had to use the more familiar Roman name) because she’s jealous of his beautiful mother. Which is true. However, I didn’t come right out and say why! Even so, children learn a lot about Greek history and mythology from the books. Many teachers in the UK have been reading them to their classes as part of the class studies. I’m actually teaching by stealth!
How do you go about working with the comic/comedic aspects of classical antiquity?
I’ve incorporated comedy by accentuating the flaws of the Greek heroes and by placing them in unexpected situations. For example, Hercules is super-strong but not exactly super-smart. In book 1, which is set in the modern day, he insists on using skills he developed while performing the Twelve Labours. Sadly they don’t work so well when it comes to tackling housework and school bullies.
Are you planning any further forays into classical material?
Yes, I’m definitely planning further forays! I’ve already had a few plays published in the Australian Readers Theatre, (Blake Education), that combine the classics with Australian history. I’ve written The Flying Finish, where Pegasus and Bellerophon enter the Melbourne Cup; The Gold Rush Touch, where a goldfields prospector succumbs to the Midas Touch; and Pandora’s Ballot Box, where a young girl encounters the suffragette movement. They bring the classics to life in a new way, and show that they are still very relevant and relatable today!
Anything else you think we should know?
The Hopeless Heroes books aren’t just retelling of the myths – that’s been done many times before. The stories begin when 10-year-old Tim Baker accidentally breaks an ancient amphora, and discovers that Hercules had been trapped inside it for thousands of years. Once repaired, the vase allows Tim to travel back to Ancient Greece. He befriends Hercules’ daughter Zoe (an addition to the traditional myths), and together they encounter famous heroes, escape bizarre monsters, solve baffling puzzles, and even defy the gods themselves. I only hope they don’t hold grudges …
Antipodean Odyssey 