A book like Tanglewood Tales is not the sort of book I would normally scout out for myself, seeing as it is a children's book, but after receiving it as a gift, I'm very glad I gave it a chance. This collection of short stories are concerned with mainly Greek (with some Roman) mythology and although they are shortened to appeal to a younger audience, I would still say are quite advanced in terms of language and so would encourage any readers of any age to pick this up. For the rest of my review, I would like to focus on the individual six short stories in which it contained:

The Minotaur
This was the only one of the six short stories that I was honestly a little bit disappointed in. With the tale of the Minotaur being so famous and action-packed, Hawthorne's retelling fell short in my expectations and lacked any type of excitement, with the first half of this story seeming most like unrelated filler used just to get the page count up. That being said, overall, this collection was awarded five stars due to the other stories being so simplistically brilliant that I felt I could forgive this one.

The Pygmies
This one was much better than the first one and was one that I had never heard of was refreshing to learn a new story rather than having a retelling of one I was familiar with. What made this short story so charming was its characters; six inch men being friends with a giant, what more could you possibly want?

The Dragon's Teeth
Initially, I had mixed feelings about this one because right up until the last few pages, it had seemed that Hawthorne was going to ignore the initial issue he had created and never provide any resolution and although the 'resolution' he gave - if you could call it that - wasn't really what I was hoping for, it didn't make this story as infuriating as it was about to make me.

Circe's Palace
After studying The Odyssey in college for a year straight and honestly being entirely sick of the storyline and the characters, this one did not excite me from the title in the slightest and instead I dreaded having to read it. That being said, the way Hawthorne retold this story made it such a delightful, non-strenuous experience and even provided a good moral story about greed in the midst of his storytelling.

The Pomegranate Seeds
This story was filled with pathos and a little bit repetitive on that account, meaning that I don't have really too much to say about this one apart from the fact it also offered a good moral story for children and taught the importance of not straying away from familiar places alone and listening to your elders.

The Golden Fleece
A particularly nice end to the collection of short stories with this one, being littered with references from each story that came before it.