[Mary Renault] has chosen to write a story for children about the Greeks defying the Persian empire ["The Lion in the Gateway"] and there is never any question about the purpose of the story. She tells it freshly, exultantly, as though it had never been told before. She has caught Herodotus's trick of making her heroes a little larger than life. She has a proper respect for Persian opulence and magnificence, and when she describes Darius or Xerxes she paints them in rainbow colors; and she does not underestimate the Persian bravery. But the Greeks run away with the story…. She gives pride of place to Pheidippides, who ran to Sparta to announce the coming of the Persians and saw the great god Pan along the way. It is a measure of her skill that she makes his meeting with the goatgod perfectly credible, and that the young runner himself becomes the personification of the Greek genius. He is an excellent choice for a hero, and it is odd that no one ever thought of it before.
Children deserve the best, and they have it here in full measure. Meanwhile let us hope that Mary Renault will tell them about Periclean Athens, and then of Alexander.
Robert Payne, "New Volumes for the Younger Reader's Bookshelf: 'The Lion in the Gateway'," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1964 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), October 4, 1964, p. 26.
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