Black Ships Before Troy
by Rosemary Sutcliff
Middle grade · ages 10–14 · grades 5–9 · 820L · 2005
Why we'd hand it over
Sutcliff's verse retelling makes the Iliad breathable for 10-year-olds without dumbing it down; the humanity of both sides—Greeks and Trojans—stays front and center, and the language is genuinely beautiful.