Gods and Goddesses: Mythological Fiction for Young Readers
Discover captivating mythological fiction for young readers with our list of books featuring gods and goddesses. Perfect for sparking imagination and a love for ancient myths!
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Oh. My. Gods
by Tera Lynn Childs
When her mother suddenly decides to marry a near-stranger, Phoebe, whose passion is running, soon finds herself living on a remote Greek island, completing her senior year at an ancient high school where the students and teachers are all descended from gods or goddesses.
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Gods of Manhattan
by Scott Mebus
Thirteen-year-old Rory discovers a spirit world that thrives alongside his contemporary New York City, filled with fantastical creatures and people from the city's colorful past who have become gods and goddesses and who have chosen Rory to perform a dangerous mission.
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Dragon Sword and Wind Child
by Noriko Ogiwara
In the land of Toyoashihara, the forces of the God of Light and the Goddess of Darkness have waged war for generations. But for 15-year old Saya, the war is far away and unimportant--until the day she discovers she is the reincarnation of the Water Maiden and a princess of the Children of the Dark. Raised to love the Light and detest the Dark, Saya must come to terms with her heritage even as she is tumbled into the very heart of the conflict that is destroying her country. Both the army of the Light and Dark seek to claim her, for she is the only mortal who can awaken the legendary Dragon Sword, the weapon destined to end the war. Can Saya make the dreadful choice between the Light and Dark, or is she doomed like all the Water Maidens who have come before her?
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Runemarks
by Joanne Harris
Maddy Smith, who bears the mysterious mark of a rune on her hand, learns that she is destined to join the gods of Norse mythology and play a role in the fate of the world.
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Starfall
by Michael Cadnum
Expands on the myth of Phaeton, a young man who undertakes a long and dangerous journey to the gates of dawn to confront the mighty god of the sun, Apollo, and is granted one wish--to drive the chariot of the sun for a day.
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Medusa Jones
by Ross Collins
It's off to ancient Greece for a split-your-side funny take on the politics of junior-high popularity. In ancient Greece lived a little girl called Medusa Jones. Medusa was a Gorgon, but apart from that, pretty normal. So she has snakes for hair instead of gorgeous blond ringlets like Cassandra. So her best friend is half horse. Is that any reason for the popular kids to be SO mean? Medusa's sure the school camping trip is going to be a nightmare. But a rock fall puts the popular kids in peril, and Medusa's the only one who can help. Will she be a hero -- or is her monster side finally going to come out? It's Freaks versus Heroes, brought to life by Ross Collins's hilarious illustrations!
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Dusssie
by Nancy Springer
At age thirteen Dusie makes the horrifying discovery that she, like her New York artist mother, is a Gorgon--a Greek mythological monster sprouting snakes from her head and capable of turning humans into stone with one angry look.
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The Night Tourist
by Katherine Marsh
Jack Perdu, a shy, ninth grade classics prodigy lives with father on the Yale University campus. Smart and introverted, Jack spends most of his time alone, his nose buried in a book. But when Jack suffers a near fatal accident, his life is forever changed. His father sends him to a mysterious doctor in New York City--a place Jack hasn't been since his mother died there eight years ago. While in the city, Jack meets Euri, a young girl who offers to show him the secrets of Grand Central Station. Here, Jack discovers New York's Underworld, a place where those who died in the city reside until they are ready to move on. This, Jack believes, is a chance to see his mother again. But as secrets about Euri's past are revealed, so are the true reasons for Jack’s visit to the Underworld. Masterfully told, The Night Tourist weaves together New York City's secret history and its modern-day landscape to create a highly vivid ghost world, full of magical adventure and page-turning action.
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Iris, Messenger
by Sarah Deming
When Iris Greenwold receives a copy of "Bulfinch's Mythology" for her 12th birthday, she discovers that all of the ancient gods are living in the greater Philadelphia area.
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Silverlance
by Peter Thomas Crowell
Misrule magic, Midwinter's magic ... Byron Thorn's twelfth birthday is no ordinary day. The western wolves are howling and the animals have broken their winter sleep. The centaur Ravinath and his sinister followers are uneasy and the king's Chief at Arms is keeping watch on the Fencewood. The sign of an ancient prophecy suddenly appears, and before his Misrule's Day is over, Byron Thorn will be running for his life.
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Nobody's Princess
by Esther Friesner
Helen of Sparta wants to be more than a princess and a pretty face—she wants to be a hero. The traditions of ancient Sparta would have Helen know her place: a beautiful princess, a loyal daughter, a perfect bride. But Helen wants adventure, and she's not looking back. Not one to count on the gods to take care of her, she sets out to see the world and seek her own fate with steely determination. Her rebellious will makes Helen dangerous enemies—such as the self-proclaimed "son of Zeus" Theseus—but it also gains her true friends, from the famed huntress Atalanta to the young priestess who is the Oracle of Delphi. If she is strong enough, if she is cunning enough, if she is brave enough, Helen will find her destiny . . . but what does destiny have in store for her? In Nobody's Princess, author Esther Friesner deftly weaves together history and myth as she takes a new look at the girl who will become Helen of Troy. The back of the book includes further facts about Helen of Troy and Ancient Greece. Hand to readers who love Tamora Pierce and Leigh Bardugo, particularly if they just finished Wonder Woman: Warbringer and want to know more about Helen of Troy. "A must-read for fans of fantasy and mythology."—VOYA "Along the way, Friesner skillfully exposes larger issues of women's rights, human bondage, and individual destiny. It's a rollicking good story."—Booklist
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Snake Head
by Ann Halam
Becoming aware that Andromeda must die in order to save her own people, the son of Zeus, Perseus, is left with no choice but to go on a death-defying journey to the land of Medusa where a confrontation must be had with the snake-haired creature in order to save the mortal princess he loves.
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Lost in the Labyrinth
by Patrice Kindl
Fourteen-year-old Princess Xenodice tries to prevent the death of her half-brother, the Minotaur, at the hands of the Athenian prince, Theseus, who is aided by Icarus, Daedalus, and her sister Ariadne.
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Walking with the Dead
by Lucy M. Falcone
In this frightfully funny novel by L.M. Falcone, an ancient corpse launches two boys on a suspenseful journey through the netherworld.
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Quiver
by Stephanie Spinner
Greek gods and mortals spring to life in this riveting retelling of the myth of Atalanta, the fleet-footed girl warrior who could outrun any man in ancient Greece. Cast off and abandoned at birth, Atalanta– saved by a she-bear and raised by hunters–proves herself to be a superior archer and the fastest runner in the land. But her skills and independence anger many, including her father, the Arcadian King, who suddenly reclaims her and demands that she produce an heir to the throne. Atalanta has pledged herself to Artemis, goddess of the hunt, who has forbidden her to marry. Unwilling to break her promise, Atalanta suggests a grim compromise: she will marry the first man to beat her in a race, but everyone she defeats must die. All the while, Artemis, Apollo, Aphrodite, Eros, and Zeus himself watch–and interfere–from on high.
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Anatopsis
by Chris Abouzeid
In the realm from which the Greek gods ruled the universe thousands of years ago, the immortal witch Anatopsis uncovers the true objectives of her demi-god tutor Mr. Pound and attempts to prevent him from carrying out his evil plans.
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The Pig Scrolls
by Paul Shipton
A translation of an ancient Greek manuscript written by Gryllus, a talking pig who was once a man, which describes the many adventures that he and his companions--a junior prophetess named Sybil and a bumbling goatherd--experience while traveling to Delphi to try to prevent the universe from coming to an end.
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The Sea of Trolls
by Nancy Farmer
Jack was eleven when the berserkers loomed out of the fog and nabbed him. "It seems that things are stirring across the water," the Bard had warned. "Ships are being built, swords are being forged." "Is that bad?" Jack had asked, for his Saxon village had never before seen berserkers. "Of course. People don't make ships and swords unless they intend to use them." The year is A.D. 793. In the next months, Jack and his little sister, Lucy, are enslaved by Olaf One-Brow and his fierce young shipmate, Thorgil. With a crow named Bold Heart for mysterious company, they are swept up into an adventure-quest in the spirit of The Lord of the Rings. Award-winner Nancy Farmer has never told a richer, funnier tale, nor offered more timeless encouragement to young seekers than "Just say no to pillaging."
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Dingo
by Charles De Lint
Seventeen-year-old Miguel Schreiber and a long-term enemy are drawn into a strange dream world when they fall in love with shapeshifting sisters from Australia - twins hiding from a cursed ancestor who can only be freed with the girls' cooperation.
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Juliet Dove, Queen of Love
by Bruce Coville
Shy Juliet Dove leaves Mr. Elives' magic shop with Helen of Troy's amulet--a virtual man magnet. Juliet doesn't know what she's got, but soon every boy in town is swoony for her. Yet, much as she'd like to lose all the unwanted attention, she can't: The amulet won't come off A sidesplittingly funny, heartbreaking whirlwind of a book about the high cost of loving, from the award-winning author of My Teacher Is an Alien and The Unicorn Chronicles.
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Psyche in a Dress
by Francesca Lia Block
But this is what I could not give up: I could not give up myself Psyche has known Love—scented with jasmine and tasting of fresh oranges. Yet he is fleeting and fragile, lost to her too quickly. Punished by self-doubt, Psyche yearns to be transformed, like the beautiful and brutal figures in the myths her lover once spoke of. Attempting to uncover beauty in the darkness, she is challenged, tested, and changed by the gods and demons who tempt her. Her faith must be found again, for if she is to love, she must never look back.
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Pandora Gets Jealous
by Carolyn Hennesy
Thirteen-year-old Pandy is hauled before Zeus and given six months to gather all of the evils that were released when the box she brought to school as her annual project was accidentally opened.
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Cupid
by Julius Lester
Cupid, the spoiled and mischievous god of love, is attracted to and marries the beautiful mortal, Psyche, and both learn many lessons about the nature of love.
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Goddess of Yesterday
by Caroline B. Cooney
Taken from her home on an Aegean island as a six-year-old girl, Anaxandra calls on the protection of her goddess while she poses as two different princesses over the next six years, before ending up as a servant in the company of Helen and Paris as they make their way to Troy.
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The Shadow Thieves
by Anne Ursu
After her cousin Zee arrives from England, thirteen-year-old Charlotte and he must set out to save humankind from denizens of the underworld, Nightmares, Death, Pain, and a really nasty guy named Phil.
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Secret of the Sirens
by Julia Golding
"Originally published in the UK by Oxford University Press, 2006."
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Thor's Wedding Day
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Thialfi, the Norse thunder god's goat boy, tells how he inadvertently helped the giant Thrym to steal Thor's magic hammer, the lengths to which Thor must go to retrieve it, and his own assistance along the way.
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Jason and the Gorgon's Blood
by Jane Yolen
Before they were heroes... The second title in the fun and exciting series created by award-winning authors Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris. Jason and the Gorgon's Blood is an adventure story from beginning to end, portraying the dramatic events that transform a boy into a legend.
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Viking Pride
by Christopher Tebbetts
This hilarious new series is packed with action, adventure, time travel, and Vikings. Fourteen-year-old Zack Gilman, the son of a die-hard Minnesota Vikings fan, is doomed to be dragged to football games until he finds a strange key and steps through the door to another world.
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The Princess and the God
by Doris Orgel
Told from the compelling point of view of Psyche herself, here is the intensely romantic story of a mortal princess, Psyche, and the god who loves her. Psyche is so beautiful that Cupid's mother, Venus, becomes jealous. She commands her son to inflame Psyche with love for a monster. Instead, Cupid falls instantly in love with Psyche, and he spirits her away to a magical fortress. But Psyche and Cupid will be tested further. Their love will take them to the underworld and back before the reader reaches the satisfyingly triumphant conclusion.
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Little Sister
by Kara Dalkey
Thirteen-year-old Fujiwara no Mitsuko, daughter of a noble family in the imperial court of twelfth century Japan, enlists the help of a shape-shifter and other figures from Japanese mythology in her efforts to save her older sister's life.
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The Ugly Goddess
by Elsa Marston
The stories of three very different young people in ancient Egypt--a 14-year-old Egyptian princess, a young Greek soldier, and a lowly shopkeeper--come together in this tale of adventure, romance, and peril. Includes a map.
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Sirena
by Donna Jo Napoli
The gods grant immortality to the mermaid Sirena when she rescues a human man from the sea and they fall in love, but his mortality creates great conflict between love and honor when he is called to defend Greece in the Trojan War.
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Corydon and the Island of Monsters
by Tobias Druitt
Corydon, an outcast Greek boy with the leg of a goat, learns that he is part of an old prophecy and joins forces with Medusa and other "monsters" known in Greek mythology in a confrontation with mortal heroes fighting for the Olympian gods.
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The Great God Pan
by Donna Jo Napoli
Pan, both goat and god, is a curious being who roams nature searching, wondering, and frolicking with maenads and satyrs. He plays melodies on his reed flute, wooing animals to listen. He is a creature of mystery and delight. One day in his travels, Pan meets Iphigenia, a human raised as the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. Pan is captivated by the young princess. Set against a landscape of myth and legend, Napoli’s latest tale is a love story wrought with sincere emotion and all that is great about the Gods. From the Hardcover edition.
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Singer to the Sea God
by Vivien Alcock
It is said that if one stares at the head of Medusa, he or she will turn to stone, but Cleo, not believing the legend, does just that and is instantly tumed into a statue! Now her brother Phaidon and uncle are on a grand adventure that takes them through ancient Greece as they attempt to turn Cleo back into a mortal. Will Phaidon's song to the sea god have the power to bring Cleo back to life?