In a Jorge Luis Borges story, a character muses that “throughout history, humankind has repeatedly told two stories: one of a lost ship sailing the Mediterranean seas in search of a beloved isle, and one of a god who allows himself to be crucified on Golgotha.” Now the Golgotha story is only about 2000 years old, but the ship sailing around the Mediterranean really is one that has been told throughout recorded history. It’s one of the best collections of stories in the world: the Odyssey.
Our Odyssey – that is, the one that was an epic song and survived in that form long enough to be written down and saved for us - was originally in verse form. The children’s versions I’ll be writing about here are in prose (story) form. But if you’re interested, Richard Lattimore and Allen Mandelbaum have both translated the Odyssey into English verse, amazingly close to the ancient Greek. 
We remember the episodes of the wanderings of Odysseus because they’re so exciting, but they don’t even start until until 5 chapters into the story! The first part is devoted to Odysseus’ son Telemachus, a young man of 20 who leaves his mother Penelope surrounded by dozens of nasty suitors who want to marry her and take over Ithaka. He goes to Sparta to see Menelaus and Helen and find out if they know anything about his missing father’s whereabouts. This story of Telemachus was probably a separate song that singers attached to the song of Odysseus back 3000 years ago. Not nearly as exciting as Odysseus’ adventures, though the tale of Menelaus fighting with Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea who changes himself into all kinds of beasts, is pretty good.
And suddenly we switch focus: Odysseus appears in the magical kingdom of the Phaiakians, a stranger who will not tell who he is until the epic singer Demodokos begins singing the songs of the Trojan War – and then Odysseus begins to weep and tells the court of King Alkinoos and Queen Arete and Princess Nausikaa who he is and what has brought him alone to their island.
The stories of his wanderings are tremendously exciting: for example, a monstrous one-eyed giant who eats some of Odysseus’s sailors, the terrifying Laestrygonians who destroy all the ships but one, and an enchantress with tame wolves and lions who turns the sailors into swine
(when my daughter read this in the fourth grade, she was so enthralled by the idea of turning boys into pigs that she used the story as a class presentation). And later a trip to the Land of the Dead across the world-encircling river Oceanus, where Odysseus speaks to the dead seer Tiresias and finds out which of the gods he has offended and why his voyage home will be such a long, hard one.
In all stories of this kind, the gods play out their quarrels with one another through their human children and favorites (does it sound like Percy Jackson in The Lightning Thief?) It turns out that Odysseus has angered Poseidon, the sea god, by blinding the Cyclops Polyphemus, Poseidon’s son (the fact that the Cyclops was eating Odysseus’ sailors was an unimportant detail to the sea god!). And so bad luck and bad choices mean it will take him another ten years to get home.
After they have left Circe’s island (as humans, not pigs!) and sailed past the deadly Sirens, Odysseus and his men must sail between Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla is a hideous sea monster with six long necks and terrifying heads. An arrow’s shot away is a huge whirlpool caused by another sea monster, Charybdis, who sucks the sea down three times a day and then vomits it back up. 
Charybdis is able to destroy an entire ship, while Scylla can only snatch six men at a time. The choices are bad, but there is no other way forward. Because Circe has warned Odysseus about the monsters, only he knows that he must either sacrifice the ship and the entire crew (including himself), or let a random six men be taken by Scylla - more, if she gets another shot at them; everything depends on the men rowing as fast as possible. I’ll leave you to finish the story in one of the many wonderful retellings:
Padraic Colum, The Children’s Homer. The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy. A true classic which includes both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Colum was honored for many of his children’s books, including The Golden Fleece, a Newbery Honor Book.
Gareth Hinds, The Odyssey: A Graphic Novel. Written in classic graphic novel form, it has readers standing in line to take it out. He’s also written a graphic novel about Beowulf, another adventure tale full of blood and monsters.
Bimba Landmann, The Incredible Voyage of Ulysses. An Italian writer and illustrator who can tell a whole episode in a two-page spread! We also have this graphic novel in Spanish, El increíble viaje de Ulises. If you hadn’t already guessed, Odysseus=Ulysses.
Hugh Lupton and Daniel Morden, The Adventures of Odysseus. This retelling has Odysseus telling his own story until he arrives back at Ithaka.
Rosemary Sutcliff, The Wanderings of Odysseus. Illustrated by Alan Lee. This is a brilliant edition – doubly brilliant because Alan Lee is such an outstanding illustrator. Rosemary Sutcliff has written over the years about Roman Britain. the Grail Quest and the Trojan War. Lee has illustrated many fantasy books, especially those of J.R.R. Tolkien; he and John Howe were the lead artists for the Lord of the Rings movies.
For some excellent backstory, try Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris, Odysseus in the Serpent Maze. Odysseus, Penelope, Helen and Mentor end up as prisoners on the island of Crete and find that the monster in the labyrinth is not what they expected.
Or you can read the Adult book by Zachary Mason, The Lost Books of the Odyssey.
There are many more retellings, up to and including the Coen Brothers’ movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? Get started on the story of Odysseus, the “man of many turnings”!
