Goddess of Yesterday (Caroline B. Cooney)

Author Biography

Caroline B. Cooney has written numerous young adult novels, specializing in suspense, romance, horror and mystery. She lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

Published By: Delacorte Press

Year: 2002

ISBN: 978-0-440—22930-8

Reading Level: Grades 8 and up.

Reader’s Annotation:

Taken from her family as a small child, Anaxandra is swept from place to place and from identity to identity amid the turmoil of ancient Greece. Can she survive all this upheaval, even as the Trojan War rages around her?

Plot Summary:

When Anaxandra, daughter of island chief Chrysaor, is six years old, King Nicander of Siphnos takes her hostage. After she naively reveals her father’s hidden wealth to Nicander’s pillaging forces, her parents no longer want her back, so until age twelve she lives on Siphnos as a companion to Princess Callisto. Then pirates ransack the island, leaving Anaxandra the sole survivor among its ruins. That is, until King Menelaus of Sparta discovers her there. He mistakes her for the dead Callisto, and to protect herself from being made a slave, she keeps her true identity a secret.

The kindly Menelaus takes “Callisto” back to Sparta to be a companion to his daughter Princess Hermione. But over her new life looms the shadow of the divinely beautiful yet cruel Queen Helen, who suspects that their young guest is no princess. Then, one night, all security is shattered when Helen abandons her husband for a new lover, Paris of Troy… and resolves to take her children with her. To protect her friend Hermione, Anaxandra secretly takes her place on the boat. Thus she plunges into a new world of intrigue and deadly dangers, amid the chaos of the Trojan War.

Critical Evaluation:

In a departure from the contemporary fiction for which she’s best known, Caroline B. Cooney sweeps readers into the tumultuous world of mythical Greece, as seen through a twelve-year-old girl’s eyes. A world where war and pillaging run rampant between the various city-states and islands, where kings are all too easily ruined, queens enslaved and their children murdered, and where the gods are fickle and pitiless, but mortals are forced nonetheless to rely on them for hope and protection. Through this chaos, we follow Anaxandra as her fortunes repeatedly change and as she changes her identity along with them, both to survive and to protect others. But all the while she prays to her “goddess of yesterday,” the goddess of her long-lost childhood island, and never forgets her true self.

This is an episodic book with little conventional plot structure – a fact that might not appeal to all readers. Some will also find Anaxandra to be a generic heroine, defined more by what happens to her than by a distinct personality. Still others might not like the villainous portrayal of Helen; she’s a truly chilling figure, eager to see men die for her yet dangerously charming even to Anaxandra, but I know that some feminists would prefer a more sympathetic Helen and a deeper exploration of her culture’s misogyny. But regardless of these concerns, this is still an engaging story. Anaxandra’s loss of her family and the upheavals of her life will strike a raw nerve in any reader, making them anxious to follow her journey. Through it all, her tenacity and courage will move and endear, as will her undying concern for those even more vulnerable than she is. Lovers of Greek mythology, especially Homer’s Trojan War-centric epics, and of brave heroines’ journeys, should find plenty of appeal in this novel.

Curriculum Ties:

•Ancient Greek culture

•Greek mythology

Challenge Issues:

•Mild profanity

•Violence

•Disturbing imagery

•Sexual references

•Child death

Why This Book?

Goddess of Yesterday might not be perfect, but for any reader in search of a good YA novel inspired by Greek mythology, it’s still a worthwhile, emotionally affecting read.