Myths and Legends

Aotearoa The New Zealand Story

Over a thousand years ago, the wind, sea currents and stars brought people to the islands that became known as Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud. Navigate your way through this sumptuously illustrated story of New Zealand. Explore the defining moments of our history, captured by celebrated children’s book creator Gavin Bishop, from the Big Bang right through to what might happen tomorrow. Discover Maori legends, layers of meaning and lesser-known facts. A truly special book, Aotearoa- The New Zealand Story deserves a space on every bookshelf, to be taken off and pored over, thumbed and treasured, time and again.

Playgrounds of Babel

This unusual, thought-provoking story begins with an old woman telling a tale to a group of children in a playground. One of the boys can’t understand what she is saying, so another offers to translate. The old woman’s tale is inspired by the Tower of Babel story: In the days when everyone spoke the same language, the people built a tower to reach God. But God was annoyed and sent a dragon to destroy the tower, then created new languages for everyone so that they couldn’t understand each other. Fortunately, two little girls find a way to communicate through song.

Featured in August 2023’s WOW Dozen on books about Language Learning and Communication.

Animal Village

The story is especially relevant to sub-Saharan Africa as it focuses on the devastation of drought and the importance of received knowledge. With its dual themes of wisdom and grit, the book happily entertains while it teaches the importance of hard work and persistence as keys to success.

Noche Antigua

Ancient Night combines many short stories from the oral tradition, like the one of the bunny and the possum, as well as the invented rivalry between the two that serves to tell the story of what happens at night behind the maize: the adventures of a hard-working bunny and an audacious possum that come and go through the field, making the moon change its appearance and the night transform into day. This silent album is inspired in the complex and monumental Middle American thinking, which conceives the origin of things in a dual way; due to this, the also illustrator of The well of the mice represents multiple dualities, like the day and night, life and death, down and up, darkness and light, among others that when putting them with their opposite they maintain the balance.

Olympians Hephaistos

Thrown from Mount Olympus as a newborn and caught by Thetis and Eurynome, who raised him on the island of Lemnos, Hephaistos had an aptitude for creating beautiful objects from a very young age. Despite his rejection from Olympus, he swallowed his anger and spent his days perfecting his craft. His exquisitely forged gifts and weapons earned him back his seat in the heavens, but he was not treated as an equal―his brothers and sisters looked down at him for his lame leg, and even his own wife, Aphrodite, was disloyal. In this installment of George O’Connor’s bestselling Olympians graphic novel series, witness Hephaistos’ wrath in God of Fire as he creates a plan that’ll win him the respect he deserves.

Charlie Hernandez and the League Of Shadows

Steeped in Hispanic folklore since childhood, middle schooler Charlie Hernandez learns the stories are true when, shortly after his parents disappearance, he grows horns and feathers and finds himself at the heart of a battle to save the world.

Putuguq and Kublu and the Qalupalik

What creatures lurk beneath the sea ice? Putuguq and Kublu – two siblings who can’t seem to get along- are about to find out! On their way to the shoreline, Putuguq and Kublu run into their grandfather, who has a stern warning for the pair: always beware when playing on the shore, because you never know if a qalupalik, a mythical creature that snatches children, is lying in wait under the ice. Kublu is pretty sure their grandfather is just trying to spook them with a scary story from the past….but maybe not?

Girl of the Southern Sea

From the time she was a little girl, Nia has dreamed up adventures about the Javanese mythical princess, Dewi Kadita. Now fourteen, Nia would love nothing more than to continue her education and become a writer. But high school costs too much. Her father sells banana fritters at the train station, but too much of his earnings go toward his drinking habit. Too often Nia is left alone to take over the food cart as well as care for her brother and their home in the Jakarta slums.