From Harry Potter to Hunger Games Rome: the classical jokes hiding in your favourite children's books

From Harry Potter to the Hunger Games, from Narnia to Winnie the Pooh, many well loved children’s books look back to the classical world in unexpected ways…

Do these fans queuing in Trafalgar Square for a chance to glimpse the stars of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows know that their sign is in Latin...? Photograph: Sarah Lee/Guardian

Frances Myatt

Wednesday 19 August 2015  The Guardian

Ancient Greece and Rome make awesome settings for children’s books, as anyone will know if they’ve read Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books, The Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence, or Rosemary’s Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth. But while these books are very clearly inspired by the classical world, many other children’s books have also been influenced by the legends and language of Greek and Rome, in ways you may not have imagined…

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