Little Minotaur
Gaia Alessi
Walker Books

In this book, debut author Gaia Alessi reimagines the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur with Asterion (the ‘Starry One’) as a bull-headed boy born to Queen Pasiphaë, growing up in a loving family, rather than as a monster to be slain. Asterion is a gentle child who loves nothing better than to spend his time out in nature especially among the birds. The boy struggles to speak and sounds like a foghorn when he does but his mother isn’t bothered by his manner of speaking; neither is his sister Ariadne.

Then, one summer’s day the brother and sister come upon some children hunting a lizard and they manage to scare them away thanks to the sound that emanates from Asterion’s mouth.

However, as he grows in size and stature, rumours about the so-called ‘Minotaur’, a half-man, half-beast nightmare that eats two people at a time, spreads among the people of Crete.

Can he fight the people’s prejudice and show them that he’s not the frightening monster they think he is, the one that should be slain; instead he’s merely a misunderstood boy who deserves love and understanding. Perhaps he can even engineer his own ending …

A moving story that celebrates difference and how love’s power can overcome animosity and malevolence. Gais Alessi’s mixed media illustrations capture the siblings’ feelings superbly as well as beautifully evoking the natural world so loved by Asterion and his family.