Let Sleeping Gods Lie
‘Let Sleeping Gods Lie’ is the second story about Trixie dos Santos. When her grandma's magical cauldron goes missing, Trixie is thrust into the underworld and has to call on her old - but very hard to control- friends for help!
Like the first book, this is an excellent adventure, full of humour and heart, offering a fascinating introduction to myths from cultures across the world. These stories are perfect for broadening children’s knowledge of the amazing characters from mythology beyond those so often met in school and I am delighted that today, author Thiago de Moraes, joins me on the Bookshelf to share his thoughts about the myths all around us.
Myths All Around Us
There’s no magic in our world, right?
Proper magic. Card tricks and disappearing tigers with mirrors don’t count. By proper magic I mean chimaeras breathing fire, people being turned into pigs, talking foxes, that kind of thing. And that just doesn’t exist in real life.
Well, I think that’s wrong or, at least, not exactly right. That’s why I wrote Old Gods, New Tricks and its sequel Let Sleeping Gods Lie. In both books, a young girl called Trixie dos Santos goes on adventures with a band of unruly trickster gods: Exú, Loki, Monkey King and many others. She lives in a world just like ours, but she encounters magic and legend everywhere she goes.
Growing up, I was obsessed with myths and legends from all over the world. I read book after book on the subject from my local library, and believed that the gods and creatures I was learning about were all around us. I’m much older now, and sadly I haven’t met a selkie or a griffin yet (I’d probably not be around to write this if that last one had happened) but I still see myth and magic everywhere I go.
Over the past twenty years or so, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to travel to ancient, sacred places: Chichén Itza, the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, Delos and many others, all heavy with the presence of thousands of years of belief and ritual. These are extraordinary places, but it’s in the small things, those closer to home, that I feel the grip of legend is closer to us.
Magic is there. In all the little beliefs and superstitions some of us still hold: knocking on wood, placing horseshoes over the door, and saucers of cream in the kitchen. The memories of old gods who haven’t left us: green men and oak leaves on churches; our days named after the Sun, Moon, Woden and Saturn.
All those tiny moments, images and actions are echoes of beliefs that have been part of humanity’s lives for thousands of years. We’re in an age of technology and knowledge, and that’s all for the better, but there’s still a little bit of space in all of us for the unknown, the magical, the absurd.
That’s the world I wanted to create in Let Sleeping Gods Lie. A world where all the magic (and a lot of the mayhem) left the places where it had been sleeping and spilled into our daily lives.
What would the school run be like with gnomes and sphinxes about? And travelling by plane in a sky full of dragons and harpies? What about coming across trolls under bridges and kumiho in the woods? Quite scary, is probably the answer, but also full of fun and adventure.
I hope readers join me on a journey through this world of myth and magic, and that it helps them find a little bit of both in theirs.
Many thanks to Thiago for joining me today and to Fraser from David Fickling for arranging it.
‘Let Sleeping Gods Lie’ is a brilliant read with additional information about some of the gods and goddesses met in the story at the end- the perfect starting point for further investigation!
Let Sleeping Gods Lie
Thiago de Moraes
David Fickling ISBN: 978-1788453202
You can read my review of ‘Old Gods New Tricks’ here.
