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Libro de maravillas para niñas y niños

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En 1838, Nathaniel Hawthorne le propuso a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow escribir juntos una versión infantil del mito clásico de la caja de Pandora, pero aquel proyecto nunca se materializó. Unos años más tarde, Hawthorne escribió este Libro de maravillas, en el que nos ofrece una adaptación libre y vivaz de seis leyendas de la mitología griega. El autor se propuso modernizarlas y despojarlas de lo que definió como «la fría luz de la luna», aquello que, con el paso de los siglos, las había hecho languidecer. Los seis mitos escogidos fueron: la historia de Perseo y la Medusa («La cabeza de la Gorgona»); la fábula del codicioso rey Midas («El toque de oro»); el mito de la caja de Pandora («El paraíso de los niños»); el viaje de Hércules al Jardín de las Hespérides («Las tres manzanas de oro»); el amor de Baucis y Filemón («La jarra milagrosa») y el encuentro entre el mítico caballo alado Pegaso y su único jinete, Belerofonte («La Quimera»).

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1851

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About the author

Nathaniel Hawthorne

5,340 books3,512 followers
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. He is seen as a key figure in the development of American literature for his tales of the nation's colonial history.

Shortly after graduating from Bowdoin College, Hathorne changed his name to Hawthorne. Hawthorne anonymously published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828. In 1837, he published Twice-Told Tales and became engaged to painter and illustrator Sophia Peabody the next year. He worked at a Custom House and joined a Transcendentalist Utopian community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment took Hawthorne and family to Europe before returning to The Wayside in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, leaving behind his wife and their three children.

Much of Hawthorne's writing centers around New England and many feature moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His work is considered part of the Romantic movement and includes novels, short stories, and a biography of his friend, the United States President Franklin Pierce.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 199 reviews
Profile Image for Tonkica.
733 reviews147 followers
December 13, 2018
Pričanje grčkih mitova djeci, približavanje velikih likova na jednostavan, simpatičan i maštovit način je divan temelj za daljnje istraživanje. Pripovijedanje kao takvo je temeljeno na baš takvim okupljanjima. Potpuno razumijem – baš „pita“ nekome ih čitati! Za mlađe da im čitamo, za malo starije da si sami čitaju.. Kako god, svi pokriveni i svi zadovoljni!

„Kako je teška lekcija čekanja! Naš je život kratak, a koliko ga potrošimo samo dok to naučimo!“
Profile Image for rr.
144 reviews3 followers
Read
June 24, 2009
My recent time with Hawthorne and Hawthorne scholarship has made me cautious about taking anything Hawthorne said about himself at face value, but I am inclined to agree with him when he remarked that The Wonder Book was some of his best work. I've read many re-tellings of classical myths for both children and adults, and I put Hawthorne's renditions among the very (very) best. His intention is not to remain faithful to the myths' ancient forms (at least not in any straightforward understanding of "faithful"). Instead, Hawthorne recasts the tales into new shapes and animates them with his own blithe spirit. His touch and tone are delightful. His verbal pictures are sure and vivid. As I was re-reading the book today I found myself laughing out loud at some moments, crying at others, and altogether having a wonderful time. And the frame stories for each piece provide a pastoral and American coherence to the volume, making it a singular experience rather than an assorted collection.
Profile Image for Luca.
79 reviews63 followers
January 16, 2019
This was one of my favorites from the Barnes & Noble Children's Classics so far. It is lovely to read these tales that feel somewhat familiar from my youth, and I also liked the setting where these tales were told to a group of children by 'Cousin Eustace'. I enjoyed all of the tales, but Bellerophon and Pegasus was my favorite.
156 reviews40 followers
November 13, 2018
14 year old me was a git and I cannot believe I was smug enough to add "unlike my peers" in a review. I'm surprised no one punched me in the face.

*Review of 30 Sep, 2011*

I have always been fascinated by Greek mythology and, unlike many of my peers, have been reading about it long before I even heard of the Percy Jackson series. Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales was one of the first books that I had ever read on Greek mythology and nurtured my love for it. So when I saw the book on my school library shelf, I couldn't help picking it up.

This book was good read, though I must confess, I've read about most of the stories before from Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes . But Hawthorne's way of storytelling is different from Lancelyn's and it was nice to read his version of the tales.

There were six stories in this book: The Pegasus, the magic pitcher, Pandora, the three golden apples, Medusa and Midas. All of them are famous Greek legends.

The writing dragged a bit most of the times but the descriptions were nice and Hawthorne's way of describing the gods is better than that of Lancelyn's(I especially liked his description of Mercury/Hermes as Quicksilver). The stories are written as though they are narrated by a character named Eustace. It's a good read but I think I like the Tanglewood Tales better 'cause it has a better collection.
Profile Image for Teresa.
103 reviews
July 29, 2021
This was a great first step into the world of Greek mythology for my 7 and 4 year olds. We read it aloud together and they were enthralled with each story, and have even been acting out some of the stories during their playtime. Today, my 4 year old brought me a drawing of the Chimaera fighting Bellerophon on Pegasus. Very engaging!
Profile Image for Mariangel.
738 reviews
October 12, 2019
Daniel's Review: This book has six stories about Greek myths: The adventures of Perseus, the golden touch, the paradise of the children, Hercules and the golden apples, the story of Baucis and Philemon, and the Chimaera. I liked all of them. I liked Perseus the most, and the book is awesome.
Profile Image for Michelle.
493 reviews27 followers
June 3, 2022
Fancy review: https://bookdevotions.com/book-review...

Our last read-aloud of the school year, and perhaps the best?! First off, this is by the same Nathaniel Hawthorne who wrote The Scarlett Letter, one of my least favorite classics of all time. But THIS book was delightful!

It's a collection of six Greek myths retold within a frame. The frame takes the form of a wealthy, established American family, full of children who are lucky enough to possess an educated cousin named Eustace Bright, who always tells the best stories. Eustace is away at college, but every season (fall, winter, spring, and summer) he returns home, where he rambles over hill and dale with the children and tells them Greek myths, reclothed in his own Gothic literary style.

Since the myths are supposed to be coming out of Eustace's mouth, they are pitch-perfect read-alouds. The language is elevated, lush, and complex—definitely a little much for my 5-year-old, and I did have to stop and explain a lot. But he and his brother were perfectly able to follow the thread of the storyline, and they really liked each one, especially those with monsters like the chimera.

When I read aloud to my boys, I omitted the frame sections, where the cousins beg Eustace to tell them a story and he agrees. I thought these would be tedious for them, but I read them to myself, and they were actually the most interesting bits for me.

In one of the frames, Eustace is summoned to tell one of his stories in the presence of his classically educated uncle, who basically says, "I liked your story well enough, but it's an abomination. You took too many liberties with the canon." Eustace defends himself by saying something like, "These stories belong to humanity, not to Homer or Ovid. I've just as much right to reimagine them as anyone." Well played, Eustace.

Hawthorne even writes himself into the very last few paragraphs, which brought a smile to my face.

Our library copy contains full-color illustrations by the incomparable Arthur Rackham. I only wish they were larger so I could see the details better.
Profile Image for Mackenzie Melo.
303 reviews4 followers
May 15, 2021
What a wonderful little book for girls and boys. Yes, for girls and boys, not for boys and girls, as strange as it may sound.

Is that Howthorne ahead of his time or is he only trying to stir some curiosity? I don't have the answer and I don't know if anyone has, but it is, nevertheless, an interesting subject to ponder upon.

Six myths, retold by one of the American Classic writers that made me feel back in my childhood, watching Clash of The Titans, with Perseus fighting the Medusa with his sword and shield-mirror. Or to feel the sadness of Marygold when she can't smell a golden flower. Or yet, to hear Philemon and Baucis in their garden wanting to live and die together...

By the way, this passage below is one that touches my heart, especially after reading The Miraculous Pitcher, my favorite story of the six.

"Whenever a wayfarer paused beneath it, he heard a pleasant whisper of the leaves above his head, and wondered how the sound should so much resemble words like these:— "Welcome, welcome, dear traveler, welcome!"

Feel welcomed to the book, dear reader. It is a wonder.
Profile Image for Haleigh DeRocher .
135 reviews208 followers
January 7, 2024
This book of myths is so cleverly framed that I found it refreshing and unique - so unlike other books of Greek myths you'll find. The story starts in Tanglewood with a group of children and a young man telling them stories. The stories he tells are retellings of some of the most well known Greek myths, but they're written in a way to make them seem more relevant to our modern time. It makes for a great introduction to Greek myths for kids, and I'll definitely be reading it with my children at some point.
Profile Image for Malapata.
724 reviews67 followers
January 10, 2018
Seis leyendas de la mitología clásica adaptadas para niños. El problema es que el estilo se ha quedado bastante anticuado, y resulta bastante pesado de leer. Sólo se salvan un par de leyendas, la de Perseo y las gorgonas y la de Hércules y las manzanas doradas, y aún así algunas páginas me las leí en diagonal.
Profile Image for Kristin.
340 reviews
Read
March 15, 2025
Read aloud to our 9 and 5 year old boys. They enjoyed these retold myths although I did skip some of the dialogue intermissions between the main tales. Their favorite was definitely the recounting of Belleraphon/Pegasus and the Chimera's battle, with Pandora's box a close second (there was a perfect amount of anticipation in that one -- we all found ourselves wishing Pandora would open the box already!).
Profile Image for Alyssa Bohon.
567 reviews5 followers
October 3, 2023
The Audible narration of this book by James Joy is enchanting. A perfect reader, so crisp, lucid, and engaging, it's hard to believe the book was meant to be read any other way. The children and I thoroughly enjoyed each story. Hawthorne's New England settings between tales are as delightful as his retellings of the classic myths.
Profile Image for Caroline.
1,545 reviews77 followers
May 4, 2025
A nice read for an evening. I already knew most of these stories, so it was cool to have the addition of the story where the stories are told. This is a nice way to introduce children to some of the Greek myths, so maybe I'll read this to my daughter one day.
Profile Image for Bobbiann Markle.
340 reviews7 followers
March 30, 2021
My 7-year-old and I enjoyed these tales. They are Greek myths.
Profile Image for Rhys.
Author 326 books320 followers
June 24, 2019
Recently I have been re-reading books that were important to me when I was young. I say "re-reading" but back then I rarely read them all the way through. I tended just to dip and skim. This time, decades later, I am reading them properly, from start to finish.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book was possibly my first introduction to the world of Classical Myth (I can't be entirely sure about this). I remember that the stories made a great impression on me. The myths are retold with skill and charm. Here are adventures involving Medusa, Midas, Pandora, Hercules, Quicksilver and Pegasus.

There is a pleasing frame-tale that encompasses the six chosen retellings. The character of Eustace Bright, a student who is left in charge of a gathering of children at Tanglewood House, is nicely drawn. He is a dreamer, deluded as to his own prospects as a writer, but full of enthusiasm and sensitive to criticism but ultimately resilient enough not to remain crestfallen for long when the scholar Mr Pringle berates him for the style in which he retells these ancient stories.

Of the six chosen myths, the most enjoyable is perhaps the last one, 'The Chimaera', in which the fight between the monster and the hero Bellepheron is rendered superbly. But all are enjoyable despite the fact they may now be too familiar to the modern reader (the outcomes are not at all unexpected).

One of the best aspects of this book for me was a very metafictional touch at the end, in which it is revealed that Eustace Bright knows that he and the children are merely characters in a book penned by Hawthorne and he expresses anxiety that they should annoy the author to the point where the author would annihilate them all by throwing the unpublished manuscript on the fire.

I am looking forward to the sequel, The Tanglewood Tales, which I obtained a couple of months ago.
Profile Image for Skedatt.
326 reviews
June 10, 2014
I loved it. My kids (4 - 9yrs) loved it--they kept begging me to read it for longer. It makes an excellent read-aloud for all ages of children, since the stories are short enough (there are six in the book that take about an hour to read) and reworked enough to be perfect for children. They are not Disneyfied (considering that Hawthorne predates Disney by a fair bit of time but you know what I mean), but the myths are enjoyably and appropriately told (as compared to dry and boring) with a nice side-dish of humor. For example, in describing Athena to Perseus, Hermes (known as Quicksilver here) says that

"(She) has all the arts and sciences at her fingers' ends. In short, she is so immoderately wise that many people call her wisdom personified. But, to tell you the truth, she has hardly vivacity enough for my taste; and I think you would scarcely find her so pleasant a traveling companion as myself. She has her good points, nevertheless; and you will find the benefit of them, in your encounter with the Gorgons."

To someone like me, who likes the way that language works and sounds, it is absolutely hilarious.

Stories included are Perseus and Medusa, King Midas, Pandora (which lays the blame more equally upon both parties, I found that most interesting), Hercules and the Golden Apples, Philemon and Baucis, and Belleraphon and the Chimaera. There are little nuggets of wisdom in each of the tales but not overbearing at all.

Apparently it continues in Tanglewood Tales. Looking forward to it!

Profile Image for Ric.
1,452 reviews135 followers
December 29, 2021
This is going to be a weird one to rate for me, so I’m just going to put it at 3 stars and move on. I love Greek mythology and think this is a pretty good introduction for children, but there are a lot of things that were inexplicably left out. Like the fact that many of these characters were actually gods or their names at all. Athena in the story of Perseus wasn’t even named, and Hermes was called Quicksilver like he was in the X-Men. Obviously they were cleaned up because young children don’t necessarily need to know how demigods came about, but some of the other choices seem weird.

Also, I didn’t love the interludes of someone literally telling the stories we were reading to their children, it seemed unnecessary to me but I do understand why others might like it. Personally though, I’d have liked for more mythology. Solid book for the age group, just maybe not others.
Profile Image for مينا ساهر.
Author 1 book423 followers
January 24, 2011
الكتاب إعادة لسرد العديد من الأساطير اليونانية .. مثل صندوق باندورا، رأس ميدوسا و هي الأساطير التي عرفنا عنها الكثير من سلسلة ما وراء الطبيعه منذ سنوات ...
لم يقدم الكتاب جديداً سوى سلاسة الحكي مما يمتع لمن عرف و لمن لم يعرف تلك الأساطير
Profile Image for Rebecca.
200 reviews
April 8, 2017
I absolutely loved this. It is witty and clever and funny. Would love to read again. Loved the illustrations!
Profile Image for Joanna.
76 reviews11 followers
March 30, 2020
"For my part, I wish I had Pegasus here, at this moment," said the student. "I would mount him forthwith, and gallop about the country, within a circumference of a few miles, making literary calls on my brother-authors. Dr. Dewey would be within my reach, at the foot of Taconic. In Stockbridge, yonder, is Mr. James, conspicuous to all the world on his mountain-pile of history and romance. Longfellow, I believe, is not yet at the Ox-bow, else the winged horse would neigh at the sight of him. But, here in Lenox, I should find our most truthful novelist, who has made the scenery and life of Berkshire all her own. On the hither side of Pittsfield sits Herman Melville, shaping out the gigantic conception of his 'White Whale,' while the gigantic shape of Graylock looms upon him from his study-window. Another bound of my flying steed would bring me to the door of Holmes, whom I mention last, because Pegasus would certainly unseat me, the next minute, and claim the poet as his rider."
"Have we not an author for our next neighbor?" asked Primrose. "That silent man, who lives in the old red house, near Tanglewood Avenue, and whom we sometimes meet, with two children at his side, in the woods or at the lake. I think I have heard of his having written a poem, or a romance, or an arithmetic, or a school-history, or some other kind of a book."
"Hush, Primrose, hush!" exclaimed Eustace, in a thrilling whisper, and putting his finger on his lip. "Not a word about that man, even on a hill-top! If our babble were to reach his ears, and happen not to please him, he has but to fling a quire or two of paper into the stove, and you, Primrose, and I, and Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, Squash-Blossom, Blue Eye, Huckleberry, Clover, Cowslip, Plantain, Milkweed, Dandelion, and Buttercup,—yes, and wise Mr. Pringle, with his unfavorable criticisms on my legends, and poor Mrs. Pringle, too,—would all turn to smoke, and go whisking up the funnel! Our neighbor in the red house is a harmless sort of person enough, for aught I know, as concerns the rest of the world; but something whispers to me that he has a terrible power over ourselves, extending to nothing short of annihilation."
Profile Image for Joanna.
1,027 reviews13 followers
March 24, 2025
I just finished reading this aloud to my boy as part of his school lessons and I’m closing the book feeling very satisfied. These are retellings that make it easy to fall in love with classic myths. I don’t ever want to forget sitting in bed with my son only a week after my family went through life-threatening difficulties (on both sides!) and reading about how the last thing let out of Pandora’s box was Hope.
Profile Image for Kate.
37 reviews1 follower
June 5, 2025
Highly recommend! Beautiful retelling of ancient tales. Read with my up in coming year 4 this past year (and nine others her age that found the portrayals truly captivating). We all had such a merry time together. Hawthorne has a way with words that enchants both children and adults alike!! My year 2 just started it as part of his personal summer reading and is devouring it already.
Profile Image for Diana.
273 reviews43 followers
December 28, 2018
Fun introduction to Greek Mythology
81 reviews
December 21, 2023
Bedtime read with Abby, over months. Delightful read!
Profile Image for Joey W.
92 reviews1 follower
November 11, 2024
The retellings were good, but i really disliked the introductions, especially the names of the children.
Profile Image for Alice.
187 reviews1 follower
May 31, 2025
This is a wonderful introduction to Greek myths for children. I truly enjoyed it as an adult as well, and I like Nathaniel Hawthorne's retelling of these old myths.
Profile Image for Erica Fitzgerald .
43 reviews1 follower
February 4, 2022
Great introduction to Greek myths for kids (and their mom, who was largely unfamiliar with them!). Looking forward to reading Tanglewood Tales next.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 199 reviews

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