Richie’s Picks: STYX AND STONES
Richie Partington
Richie’s Picks: STYX AND STONES by Gary D. Schmidt and Ron Koertge, HarperCollins/Clarion, May 2026, 240p., ISBN: 978-0-06-338097-4
“I'll give you anything you want pretty girl
You could rule over the underworld
A coal mine full of diamonds and a string of black pearls
I'll make you
I'm gonna crown you as the queen of the dead
Gold-capped teeth in a ring on your head
You can hear the river from my burial bed
Listen”
– Parker Millsap, “Hades Pleads” (2016)
“‘Listen,’ said Zeke, ‘I can’t be late, and you can’t stay in this bathroom forever.’
‘Forever,’ whispered Simon.
‘So you’re gonna hang out with me. You’re my cousin, okay? You lost your luggage on the flight here from…where’d you say?
‘Lacedaemon.’
‘...Las Vegas. Now let me look at you.’
‘I am no longer cold,’ Simon said.
‘No kidding. You put everything on.’
‘Of course I put everything on. Did I misunderstand?’
‘Take off like three pairs of sweats. Those.’ Zeke gestured at Simon’s legs. ‘And let’s stick with one hoodie.’
Simon began peeling off layers. ‘Everyone in Hades is naked and miserable,’ he said. ‘Now I am clothed and serene.’
‘Just like the Buddha. Good for you.’ Zeke pointed toward the hall. ‘Time to go, okay? If somebody asks, who are you?’
‘I am Simon of Lace–’
‘Vegas. Let’s go.’ And Zeke pushed open the seventh-grade boy’s bathroom door.
Simon stepped out, then froze. The halls were crowded and smothering, a little too much like the newly dead milling around on the banks of the River Acheron, waiting for Charon and they-didn’t-know-what.
But they were far from dead: laughing, jostling, pointing, fretting, flirting, trudging, bustling.
‘Clamor,’ whispered Simon with a grimace. Then, ‘Spartans,’ he muttered with hate.”
Those middle schoolers are, in fact, Spartans. (It’s their mascot.) But having just arrived here–naked, in the boy’s seventh-grade bathroom–from the underworld, having pulled off an impossible escape from Hades after thousands of years of sustained, unimaginable torture, Simon misses such fine distinctions.
Fortunately, when Simon shows up in that bathroom, the much-bullied seventh grader Zeke is there to help this odd, even-less-fortunate-than-himself individual. With neither paperwork nor clothes, Simon scores a place to live with Zeke and his grandmother, and begins to shadow Zeke through his classes. With his firsthand knowledge of the underworld, Simon soon secures a favored position with Zeke’s Classic Studies teacher, Mr. Savalas.
STYX AND STONES is absolutely hysterical and very satisfying. It’s the perfect read for middle schoolers who are studying, or have studied, Greek mythology. It’s the product of two guy authors I’ve read, loved, and written about for a generation now.
Beneath the tale’s layers of the real world and the underworld, there are two underlying, universal stories here: a boy-and-his-(three-headed) dog story, and a two-best-guy-friends story.
And then there’s Persephone:
“Hades leaned forward. ‘Come sit beside me.’
Persephone settled back into her throne and peered up at him. ‘Sometimes I would like to sit beside you, Hades. Right beside you. Sometimes I would like the shades to see not him and her, but us.’
Hades scowled and combed his beard with all ten fingers. ‘But I’m the king. You are the queen.’
‘Two together are stronger than two apart, my darling.’
‘So I should have your throne moved right next to mine?’
She nodded.
‘Anything else?’
‘If I were next to you, and on the same level–’
‘The same level?’
‘A dream of mine, yes.’
‘And you would sit there sometimes, not out on the portico?’
‘All the time. So I could look into your eyes. And listen. Even advise if you see fit.’
‘I will think on this.’
Her hand–pale and young and flawless–covered his. ‘Of course. You have been more than patient. But may I suggest one more thing?’
He nodded warily.
‘You’ve heard of badminton?’ she asked.
He shook his head, and his crown slipped a little bit. ‘But I like the “bad” part already.’”
STYX AND STONES is a serious LMAO hoot. Do. Not. Miss. It.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.pbworks.com