Pandora Gets Jealous (Pandora Series #1) » (Reprint)

Carolyn Hennesy is the author of Pandora Gets Jealous. A Los Angeles native, she has over twenty-five years’ experience in the entertainment industry, having appeared in more than two hundred films, TV shows, commercials, and live stage productions. In addition to her full-time acting and writing careers, Ms. Hennesy also teaches improvisational comedy and has become a flying trapeze artist. She lives in the Los Angeles area.

carolynhennesy.com

13-year-old Pandora Atheneus Andromaeche Helena (or Pandy, for short) has no idea what she’ll bring for her school project. By accident she discovers a simple box, said to contain something so terrifying and horrible that no one must ever, ever touch it for fear of inflicting all of mankind with the wrath of the Gods and Goddesses. This, of course, makes the box the perfect thing for Pandora to bring for her school project. Unfortunately, things don’t go quite the way she was hoping, and the box accidentally gets opened, unleashing all kinds of evil and misery into the world. Hauled before Zeus, Hera and the rest of immortals, Pandy’s given the task of collecting all the evils within a year’s time.

Publishers Weekly

Harry Potter meets Edith Hamilton in this cheeky rendition of Pandora's famous faux pas, first in the Mythic Adventures series. Prometheus's daughter, Pandora, sneaks the notorious box of evils out of hiding rather than bring her father's boring old eagle-eaten liver to a student competition at the Athena Maiden Middle School, where she accidentally opens it and releases the plagues of humanity. Sentenced by Zeus to retrieve them, Pandora is aided by secret gifts from some gods and goddesses who, as Hermes tells her, remember their own youthful mistakes: "A little petty thievery, a few unrequited loves, people mistakenly transformed into animals or trees or hideous monsters. Things we're not proudof, all right?" Pandy, accompanied by two stricken friends, finds her way to the Oracle at Delphi and gets Jealousy back. Aspiring Hellenists will appreciate Hennesy's informed liberties with her topic, and novices will be not only fine but possibly inspired to go further. Debut novelist Hennesy's Hollywood comedian background shows in her witty juxtapositions of modern popular culture and classical Greek legend: her work is rife with mythic creatures (dryads, satyrs, gorgons), magic (a talking diary, winged flying shoes, shape-shifting) and lively dialogue (" 'Hey, sorry about the light,' Hermes said. 'Standard procedure. Zeus wants everyone to be terribly afraid when I appear whether it's good news or bad; but that kind of thinking is sooooo Bronze Age, right?' "). Accurate where it counts, this loosely interpreted myth rarely misses a comic twist. Ages 9-12. (Jan.)