nerd teacher [books] reviewed Zeus: King of the Gods by George O'Connor (Olympians, #1)
Nothing New, Minimally Interesting
2 stars
This is yet another book where I've read it primarily from the perspective of a person looking for resources to support students' learning of English, and this is yet another book where I've found it was written... as if it was meant to be an educational book that "doesn't feel" like an educational book (except it does). Then, I look up the publisher where the book resides, and I keep finding them to be educational publishers (or closely related to educational publishers).
This is not an inherent problem except that these books are highly formulaic and repeat the exact same basic structures over and over. These structures aren't used to do anything except create recognisable patterns; they almost never utilise any other storytelling mechanic that could impart information and often just silently and indirectly teach children the "proper" way to give or receive information.
As for the story, it's... okay. …
This is yet another book where I've read it primarily from the perspective of a person looking for resources to support students' learning of English, and this is yet another book where I've found it was written... as if it was meant to be an educational book that "doesn't feel" like an educational book (except it does). Then, I look up the publisher where the book resides, and I keep finding them to be educational publishers (or closely related to educational publishers).
This is not an inherent problem except that these books are highly formulaic and repeat the exact same basic structures over and over. These structures aren't used to do anything except create recognisable patterns; they almost never utilise any other storytelling mechanic that could impart information and often just silently and indirectly teach children the "proper" way to give or receive information.
As for the story, it's... okay. There are aspects that I'm not comfortable with (minimising sexual harassment/assault, which does happen in one area where Zeus pins a woman to the ground and then asks for a kiss) while also glossing over aspects of the stories in order to mostly sanitise them beyond the 'common knowledge' aspects.
That's the other issue; it's all just the most common things, with no attempts to go beyond that. That's usually another tell that a book is part of an 'educational' series that is designed to be educational (even without seeing all the glossaries in the back). And again, I don't have problems with books being educational or prompting learning, but books designed for the explicit purpose of being used in an educational setting definitely seem to lack an audience to write for (or rather, that audience is usually "educational publishers" instead of anyone who should learn from it).