Title: Medea Tells All: A Mad, Magical Love (The Other Side of the Myth)

Author: Eric Braun

Illustrator: Stephen Park Gilpin

Date: 2014

Tags: Picturebook, Mythology, Medea, Jason and the Argonauts, Ancient worlds, Female lead, English

Medea tells her side of the story in this interesting version of the myth of Jason and the Argonauts. I can’t decide if she’s a bit of an unreliable narrator, or if the nastier details of her relationship with Jason really represents prejudice against women and foreigners, as Medea argues. She admits to committing crimes for Jason’s sake but claims that she didn’t even like him until the goddesses Aphrodite and Hera messed with her head. She also emphasizes how the fact that she was willing to risk death for the sake of some man she just met, who doesn’t even treat her well, is proof that she isn’t responsible for her actions. In the end, we readers are asked to think about how other people in the story might describe what happened. It’s an interesting thought experiment, and young readers will enjoy arguing about it. This book makes a particularly interesting lesson about reading texts critically and using textual evidence to support an argument. It’s the perfect gift for thoughtful readers and young lawyers in training. -Krishni Burns