I have been woefully slow with Goddess Girls and that includes the newer series for much younger readers.
Little Goddess Girls books are very short. They've got lots of cute illustrations, too, but don't expect your favorite GGs just in younger form. These are basically totally different characters and the story is The Wizard of Oz with a bunch of tweaks.
Athena, as seen on the cover, is now a modern Earthling. A strange wind takes her to a magical land. She's in Dorothy's role. Medusa, who's a mean girl at Athena's school is also in not-Oz, but she's not Earthling Medusa at all but a completely different girl with snake hair. She's in the Wicked Witch role and wants the magical winged sandals that attached themselves to Athena.
Athena is helped by Hestia, who is now that fairy on the cover. I hate this because Hestia was her own character in the Goddess Girls series and they completely changed her look and turned her into an adult fairy. Just give the fairy a different name. I love Hestia and think she's very underrated so to see her character kind of tossed aside and revamped annoys me. Then there are the little talking owls. And the Toto role is played by Oliver, who's Athena's dog in not-Oz. In the real world, Oliver is her pet character in a game she plays on her tablet.
The story is incredibly basic, but it's also pretty fun once you get past your expectations. So first rule of Little Goddess Girls: Don't expect anything to be the same as in Goddess Girls.
We met Persephone at the end of the first book. She's sort of the Scarecrow, I guess. But instead of needing a brain, she's convinced she's bad luck and wants some good luck.
I love her design for this. The little curly pigtails and flowers and leaves sprouting everywhere are really cute.
Fun fact: She was originally randomly blonde!
The second book takes Athena, Persephone and Oliver into the Wunderworld. Hades makes a cameo in this one and they meet Aphrodite.
Aphrodite is sort of in the Tin Man role, but instead of lacking a heart, she's lacking a filter. She just blurts out whatever sassy thing and she's actually my favorite of the four because of that. She's hilarious. But she wants to stop and her wish is for likability.
The third book has the sleep-inducing poppy fields.
And they meet Artemis.
Artemis is the closest to an actual Oz character because she's very cowardly.
The fourth book wraps up the first Oz storyline. They meet Zeus, stop Medusa by turning her to stone, Zeus gets whipped away in a balloon after giving the other girls their gifts, and Hestia the fairy reappears to help Athena get home.
Book 5 picks up with Athena at home on Earth, but asked to come to aid not-Oz. So back she goes and now we're in the Ozma of Oz storyline.
New characters include Heracles and Circe. Circe, as you can see from the cover, has many faces. This is their version of the Mombi role, only they're trying to make her more helpful. The Nome King is being turned into King Hephaestus, so this ought to be interesting.
These are cute little books, but a bit weird if you're like me and you've been into the GG-verse for so long.
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