The Story of Antigone

Beautiful, a great idea.

The Story of Antigone is a retelling of Sophocles classic for young people of today, with beautiful illustrations and the masterful narration of an all-knowing crow who understands all too well the weaknesses of humans. The crow appears as a classic chorus, a seer, and a caustic elder. The story is of a young girl who challenges her uncle by burying her brother's body. Her love for her brother outweighs her duty to the leader. And after the story, there is an interview with the crow about adapting the original play for this story. All done very cleverly.

There is an excellent description of what stories are in this discussion which I am going to include, in part, here:

Stories are a kind of nourishment. We do need them, and the fact that the story of Antigone, a story about a girl who wants to honour the body of her dead brother, and why she does, keeps being told suggests that we do need this story, that it might be one of the ways that we make life and death meaningful, that it might be a way to help us understand life and death, and that there's something nourishing in it, even though it is full of terrible and difficult things, a very dark story full of sadness. (loc 388)

I do recommend this as a book for parents to read with their children.

This book is part of Save the Story from Pushkin Children's Books, a series which brings great stories of the past to youth of today. I definitely plan to seek out others in this series and recommend them to others.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Ali Smith has done a very good job indeed here of adapting a piece of Greek legend into something more pleasant for the young to read. Surely it was not an easy thing to convert the sequel to the Oedipus legend into something so child-friendly and universally acceptable. Yes, there are corpses galore, and a narrating crow who wants nothing more than to go and eat their eyes, but she covers the sexual shenanigans in very caged language, and adds a welter of poetical nuance to what normally would be a staid retelling for the young, dressed up as a non-fictional book. There's no mistaking that with these contents we have a rich, inventive, fictional telling, and while the artwork was weak and unsightly at times, and the ending is as abrupt as that in the Eggers contribution to this series, it's a fine read. Four and a half stars.

PERFECT for introducing Greek plays!

Antigone comes from the Greek tragedy, she is Oedipus daughter, and sister of Eteocles and Polynices, in war for Thebe's throne after their father's death. During the war both of them die, and Antigone's uncle Creon becomes king. He issues an edict about his death nephews: Eteocles - the previous king - is a hero, while Polynices is the traitor, and he must not be buried and no death rites should be performed for him.

Antigone goes against the law, because the two deaths are both her brothers, and the king condemns her to die. This way begins Antigone and Creon's fate, and the story ends tragically.

The book is a re-writing of the tragedy by Ali Smith, and the result is wonderful: a raven tells the story of the girl, the narration is linear, the story is clear and there is the plus of nice illustrations. I liked Antigone's story, and I think this book could help others appreciate the story and the classic myths.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.

This is a beautiful introduction to the Antigone story (and perhaps even to Greek tragedy) for teenagers. I often teach the play to undergraduates and I can see how having read this version would definitely have made them excited to find out more. Smith is a wonderful novelist for adults and she doesn't disappoint here; she refuses to talk down to younger readers and avoids most of the cliches of the so-called YA genre in its many modern incarnations.

I wouldn't think that the tragedies of Sophocles would make interesting books for younger readers, but I was proven wrong. 'The Story of Antigone' by Ali Smith with illustrations by Laura Paoletti is a very good adaptation of the famous drama.

The story starts on the battlefield in the aftermath of a terrible slaughter. Our narrator is a crow, which is morbid and a perfect choice as a witness to the events. Antigone wants to bury her vanquished brother, but King Creon, the victor, wants no such thing. What follows is a struggle between a headstrong king and a young woman who would stand up to him. The outcome is tragic, but the lesson of being willing to give your all for what you believe in rings true today.

The illustrations are in earth tones and are quite good. It's a pretty dark story, but the narrator and a stray dog have a few moments to lighten things up. There is also a question and answer at the end between Crow and the adapter Ali. This is a very good adaptation for younger readers.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Pushkin Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.