My 11-year-old daughter's love of Greek mythology continues unabated, and I am always on the lookout for a good collection of the stories that are appropriate for her age. Recently, I stumbled across a copy of Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes and decided to give it a try -- in part because the newer edition has an introduction by Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series that inspired my daughter to seek out the original myths.

But, let's face it, at 11 she is probably too young to slog through Homer, Virgil or Ovid, and even more modern versions by Edith Hamilton, Bulfinch and others make a lot of blunt references to rape, incest and other unsavory relationships.

Green certainly does downplay those aspects of Greek mythology. Zeus, for instance, does not rape mortal women to spawn heroes, or even seduce them. Instead, he marries them, giving him a bit more respectability in this version. Oedipus, who infamously slept with his own mother, here is banished simply for unnamed crimes that he "committed unintentionally."

There are other examples, but you get the idea.

Otherwise, Green provides a fairly solid version of the most popular Greek myths up to, but not including, the Trojan War (which was covered in a separate book). Beginning with "The Coming of the Immortals," Green spins sagas of the gods themselves, the titan Prometheus, and heroes such as Perseus, Heracles, Theseus, Jason and the Argonauts, Orpheus, Meleager, Atalanta and more.

It's an easy read. It doesn't go into a lot of detail, but neither does it slog through endless names and deeds that can bog down the text. For me, it was a nice refresher for stories I read many times, in various versions, in my younger days. For my daughter, I hope it will be a nice introduction to a lifelong passion for mythology.