Sarah Deming

Deming, S. (2007). Iris, Messenger. New York: Harcourt, Inc.

9780152058234

199 pages (plus an appendix)

Appetizer: About-to-be-12-year-old Iris is a dreamer, much to the annoyance of the Erebus Middle School teachers. For her birthday, she is sent a book of Greek Mythology with strange hand-written notes in the margins that encourage Iris to question if the Greek gods are alive and hiding in the U.S.A. One note even hints that Poseidon may be nearby. So, the imaginative Iris goes in search.

Yet another attack of the female Percy Jackson story! Kinda. Iris, Messenger is different in that, while the figures of Greek myth are alive and kinda-well and living and working around New England, in place of Iris having to go on a quest to save the world or herself (although she is still dealing with worries over her mother losing her job), the focus on myth here is on retelling some of the most recognizable Greek myths. As Iris meets the various gods, Poseidon, Psyche and others pause to tell a story about themselves or about humans who encountered the gods.

While I thought the stories-within-a-story technique was a nice way to share some myths. The retellings often went on too long (we're talking 15 to 20 pages). And I felt like there should have been more interruptions of the myths. For example, Iris travels to a hair salon owned by Aphrodite (don't even get me started on the lack of jump there in the goddess's modern setting) in which Psyche works as the shampoo girl. Psyche tells Iris the story of how she met Eros.

Fine, but in the story, she describes Aphrodite as cruel several times. She's referring to the same Aphrodite that is doing Iris's hair as she's telling the story. And Aphrodite wouldn't interrupt that?

Meh.

Iris, Messenger felt a little too quick for me. By page 21, Iris has encountered her first Greek god, Poseidon, and he seems more than a little pathetic. Although that was Deming's desired effect, Poseidon has always been one of my favorite Greek gods (Have I mentioned that I very happily live beside a river? I'm a fan of the waters.). So, seeing him so pathetic (as opposed to the tanned beach bum of the Percy Jackson series) was a little too sad for my tastes. Oh, Poseidon, send me a horsey! We'll chat!

The ending also felt rushed. Instead of a real conclusion to some of Iris's biggest concerns, the reader is only left with an appendix, a mix of various documents that the reader has to piece together to realize the ending.

Now, having sounded pretty critical, I do have to say, I think kids could really like Iris as a character. She discovers new freedom when she is given *ahem* the power to travel by rainbow. She stays out all night, gets her hair did and sings the blues in a night club.

There's also quite a bit of silly humor (my personal favorite there is the biology teacher who believes aliens built and control the world).

Dinner Conversation:

"The main difference between school and prison is that prisons release you early for good behavior. School lasts about thirteen years no matter how good you are. Also, prison has better food" (p. 1).

"There were magical things waiting to happen to Iris Greenwold. They had been waiting ever since she was born, and they were getting impatient" (pp. 5-6).

"Certainly if someone wanted to hid away from the world, Middleville, Pennsylvania, would be a good place to do it, since nothing very exciting ever happened there. What if the Greek gods were alive and well and living in her town?" (p. 13).

"Whenever your parents let you go off on your own to look for mythological figures, you should always agree upon a meeting place beforehand. Don't pick something that might move, like a sand dune or bookmobile. Pick something large and permanent, like a lighthouse" (p. 19).

"But why me? Of all the people Athena could choose to watch over, why would it be me?...There's something special about me. There are dozens of kids at her school who were more likely heroines. They got better grades, or were cute or rick or good at sports, or winners of violin prizes or spelling bees. Iris was none of these things.
But secretly she did feel special. She always had. She was just special in a way that school couldn't measure, but maybe Athena could" (p. 160).

"This kind of corporation usually has more skeletons in its closet than Zeus has girlfriends" (p. 162).

Tasty Rating: !!!… (mais)

I don't remember why I picked up this book, but I kept reading it hoping something would happen and it would all make sense....no such luck. The main problem with the book is democratic plots. Each plot has an equal vote, and they all voted for themselves, so they all got a say in the story and....you know the old fable of the man and his son taking the donkey to market? Everybody had a different idea, he tried to please them all, and they lost the donkey.

So, the book starts out with a kind of interesting premise. Iris, teased at school by both unpleasant fellow students and her excessively strange and sadistic teachers, lives in a world of marvelous dreams. She writes sentences, ideas, scraps of dreams in gold on the underside of her quilt (this is a marvelous bit of imagery and very well done). She lives with her mother, who is a soybean researcher working in a tofu factory, and fends off calls from her religious Jewish father, who is obsessed with her stepmother's unending ailments. Quirky parents, kinda overdone and not really believable.

On her twelfth birthday, Iris receives a copy of Bullfinch's Mythology. She's delighted, as it's the first birthday present she remembers really liking and she loves the old myths. She's even more surprised when she finds mysterious clues and notes written into the story. Following the clues, she goes down to the beach where....

She meets Poseidon, who is now a depressed and dying beach bum. He feeds her delicious oysters and tells her the story of Halcyone. Iris leaves Poseidon in misery, vowing to help him somehow.

Iris receives another present, a beautiful shawl which turns out to be, as in the story Poseidon told her, the magical cloak of Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, which allows her to travel anywhere. While testing her new present, Iris discovers her mother has been fired from the tofu factory. Her mother tells Iris to take her old LPs out and sell them. The music store owner directs her to a jazz club where....

She meets Apollo and under the influence of his magic sings the story of Phaethon. She also meets Amphitrite, Poseidon's lost love and gets a card for Aphrodite's salon. Iris gets a prophecy from the Sibyl (who lives in the basement) saying that if she goes to war a great empire will fall. Dionysus, after a long discussion over the legality of it all, gives her wine and information, starting with the story of his wife, Ariadne. Iris meets Ares, who is now a lawyer, on her way out and talks him into suing the tofu factory for her mom.

Arriving home at a late hour, Iris still finds herself unable to sleep and goes to visit Aphrodite's salon, where she meets Aphrodite, Psyche, and Eros. She gets a makeover and the story of Psyche. Hephaestus drops in as she's leaving and gives Iris some duct tape for her dad. Iris sends Eros off to reunite Poseidon and Amphitrate. Iris leaves with two boxes of beauty which she is to deliver to Pandora and Hera. Next day in school....

Iris' insane biology teacher, who is waiting for aliens to return, takes her blood to test and after Iris talks back sends her to the dreaded principal who turns out to be....

Hades! After enduring some mild tortures, Iris gives a box of beauty to Pandora and tells Hades he has to stop torturing the kids, hire better teachers, and tell them stories that "might teach them something, not just scare them--a story about love and adventure, something inspiring." This turns out to be a bad idea because Pandora immediately...

Tells Iris the story of herself. Iris then skips (yes, it says "skipped") to the offices of private detectives Athena and Artemis to tell them Ares wants them to check out the tofu factory. Athena and Artemis are rather intimidating, and when Iris wants more information, Athena tells her the story of Arachne. Iris is, understandably, a little puzzled and goes home where she finds...

That her insane science teacher wants desperately to talk with her. She meets Miss Webb at "Monster Burger" where the science teacher informs her there is a lightning bolt on her blood cells and she is obviously an alien and....

Iris realizes, of course, that she is not an alien, she is...dum da dum...a daughter of Zeus. Iris immediately travels to visit Hera and Zeus, who live in the suburbs. Unfortunately, Hera is a nasty, dreary old woman who refuses to let Iris in. Iris gives her the box of beauty, and Hera gives her five minutes with her father who....

Turns out to be even more unpleasant than Hera; misogynistic, a couch-potato, and generally icky. Iris gives him the duct tape, which he uses to mend the remote. Iris gets a boon, which, if I understand it correctly, will let her out of school early. But I'm not sure about that. On her way out...

Hera takes her cloak, tells her she can't have it back unless she agrees to be Hera's messenger and spy, as was the original Iris. Iris refuses, loses the cloak and departs. Fortunately....

The mysterious messenger who's been delivering her gifts, Hermes, gives her a ride home on his skateboard. They talk and connect deeply. The next part is....

An appendix. Showing documents of Ares blackmailing the tofu factory into giving Iris' mom a settlement. An announcement of Poseidon and Amphitrate's wedding, and an announcement of a new tofu factory, started by Iris and her mom, which seems to incorporate the various gods' businesses.

Verdict: There are any number of good plots, ideas, and possibilities in this story. The problem is that they're all in there, rather than making about six different books. This leaves no room for the characters, which fall painfully flat, and way too many retold myths.

ISBN: 978-0152058234; Published May 2007 by Harcourt; Borrowed from the library… (mais)