King Midas

Children's Literature - Deborah Zink Roffino

The god Dionysus stars as kind, wise, and eventually, merciful as greedy King Midas learns that the touch of gold brings more pain than pleasure. Scorched with golden pages, this vibrant picture book comes to life with sympathetic characters. Excellent placement of challenging vocabulary in a relatively simple story.

School Library Journal

Gr 1-4-A skillful retelling, based on Ovid's Metamorphoses, which portrays Midas's plight as the result of a bacchanalian spree and a hedonistic whim. The future king's fortune was foretold when, as a baby, ants carried golden grains of wheat to his lips. Years later, his gardeners find a drunken satyr and bring him before the monarch. After days of revelry, Midas returns the satyr to the god Dionysus, who grants his wish for a golden touch. Unlike Kathryn Hewitt's King Midas and the Golden Touch (Harcourt, 1987), his daughter is not turned to gold, as he is able to break the spell by bathing in the River Pactolus. Philip employs elegant language and phraseology to tell the story, and he allows readers to draw their own conclusions. Brent's illustrations reflect her trademark touches of gold leaf, and each painting is bordered by a unique Greek motif. The content of some of the artwork is neither exciting nor dynamic, but it does an excellent job of capturing Midas's self-satisfied and horrified expressions. The gold and rosy colors used in the portrait of him as an infant create a sumptuous feeling. A flaw in the book's design is the all-caps typeface, which is hard to read. Still, the narrative is completely different from Hewitt's and from Eric Metaxas's King Midas and the Golden Touch (Picture Book Studio, 1992), and it's worth owning.-Cheri Estes, Dorchester Road Regional Library, Charleston, SC

From Barnes & Noble

Be careful what you wish for--it may very well come true. The cautionary tale about the King who asks the god Dionysus to turn everything he touches to gold is brought to life through the rich prose and beautiful gilded illustrations in this book. As the story unfolds, each page lends an exquisite visual touch. 9 3/4" x 9 3/4". Color illus. Ages 5-8