Story Maze: The Ultimate Wave

Abstract

The 'Our Mythical Childhood Survey' is an electronic tool within the project Our Mythical Childhood... The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children's and Young Adults' Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges supported by the European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2016 -2021). It is a study of the reception of Classical Antiquity as a cultural experience and a mirror of transformations across the world and the key to understand their trajectories. Each record of Our Mythical Childhood Survey provides bibliographical data, bios of the creators, a summary and an analysis of the work, a list of classical tags and general motifs regarding youth culture. This piece on Terry Denton's 'Storymaze Book 1 - The Ultimate Wave' looks at the work in two contexts - as a story for young readers that engages with mythological themes and allusions, but also within the context of a greater whole - all literature that engages with these themes. This entry looks at the elements of myth within his work to connect it not only to classical history and mythology, but to understand the ways in which that history is presented to readers, used by authors and woven into the fabric of childhood. This study of Denton's work takes into account the playful way in which he engages his Australian heritage with classical mythology and the ways in which he uses illustration to expand the reader's understanding of the story and the mythological elements within it.