I purchased this two years ago for my mentor, a terrific woman. She raved about this book to me and even took on one of the quotes to use in her many speaches to various mentoring causes. She said it was about time someone spoke about the importance of a mentor and how much societies need them.

Susan Ford Wiltshire walks the reader through the appearances of Athena in Homer's Odyssey. Athena takes on the appearance of close friends, family members, and strangers in her efforts to guide Odysseus home and help Telemachus into manhood. The word "mentor" comes from Athena's disguise as Mentor the old family friend and trusted advisor.

Mentoring has become a hot word for our time. Organizations have set up mentoring programs. Companies have set up mentoring program to offer larger companies. Accepting mentoring is accepting the fact that more can be accomplished through collaboration.

Many mentoring programs, however fall short. They have the skills, the knowledge, the time, the motivation but fail because the Mentor and the Mentee do not connect. As Susan F. Wiltshire began her studies and her career she watched the horizon for a mentor. Being on of the first women to enter the University setting as a professor, she longed for a mentor to help her along the rocky path that was ahead. She was well into her thirties when she read the Odyssey with new insight. She writes, "It was an important moment in my life when I finally came to see that the first mentor was a woman after all. Equipped with this story, I began to see mentors all around." (p. xiv)

Mentors are all around us, in our homes, our towns, our schools, our workplace, in politics, in chance encounters. Each adding to our life, marking the pathway before us, or pointing in a direction we had not previously considered. While this view of mentoring is very different from the many programs available, it is the view of the mentee. It is the humble realization of how many people have influenced your life.

Athena's Disguises was a very insightful book, in both my roles of a mentor and a mentee. As a mentee, I was humbled and grateful to the many people who have helped make me who I am today. As a mentor I saw how Athena never stepped in and took over, never gave strict advice but gently guided. As Wiltshire described Athena's role,

"She offers the right words in the right place at the right time, thereby empowering her companions to do for themselves whatever it is they uniquely must do. She helps people become themselves." (p. 131)

As I continue on my own life's journey I will encounter more "mentors" and will have the opportunity to be a mentor to those around me. This is a book that can be read again and again. With each new story, I was reminded of a similar incident in my own life. My role as a mentor has changed, as I have tried to do as Athena, and "help [others to] become [their] best self." (p. 132)

I am truly grateful that this book found its way into my library. As a student in a Depth Psychology program, I am required to do a community service summer project. For me, an obvious choice was to participate in the mentoring program at the middle school where I teach. In addition to on-site contact hours, I had to submit a research paper to summarize my experience and academic findings on the topic of mentoring. Having read three books on service and one on mentoring, I had tons of information but still no idea how to focus my paper until I found Athena's Disguises. Its appearance is rather deceptive. The beautiful cover jacket, the quality of the paper, and the slim size belied the impact the material would have on me.Through the use of stories, from the Odyssey to the author's recalling of personal tales that have affected her life, the historical and cultural importance of the goddess Athena's role in establishing the classical mentor model is explained in detail. This model is compared and contrasted to the more formal instrumental model often found in businesses and institutions.We traditionally think of a mentor as a wise and respected elder. Susan Ford Wiltshire points out that mentors not only come in all ages, but also in unexpected ways. She also takes the myth of the rugged individualist, who has made a go of it alone, and gently insists that no one's life is their own. Everyone is a reflection of someone else's influence. If we follow in Athena's footsteps, mentors will guide, inspire, and encourage the individual to realize their potential rather than to become duplicates of the mentor.Wiltshire references The Gift by Lewis Hyde when she suggests that, the task of finding one's gifts was considered a labor by the ancient Greeks. My labors this summer have been richly rewarded already through reading this book. I recommend it to anyone who is considering mentoring or sees themselves as an advocate. It would be an excellent present to a favorite teacher or other person who has enriched your life.

I live in Lubbock, Texas, where much of this story takes place, and I happen to know some of the people Dr. Ford mentions. But that was hardly the only reason I wanted to read this compassionate biography. Dr. Ford shows how her brother bravely faced AIDS and the bigotry related to it.

Despite its subject matter, this book is never depressing. Instead, Dr. Ford captures the inspirational aspects of her brother's life and how it touched the lives of people around him. I found her poems about his struggle especially touching and hope she'll share more of those in another book.

Ms. Wiltshire attempts a lot in this book -- to trace the theme of personal rights over 2000 years of history from ancient Greece and Rome through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and into colonial America, culminating in the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The nature of the task and the size of the book make more than a cursory attempt at a historical lineage impossible. Nevertheless, Ms. Wiltshire has provided some introductory framework for the discussion.

Some portions of the book (particularly her discussion of the ninth and tenth amendments and her attempt to paint the Apostle Paul as a natural law theorist) are contrived.

I thought the book was a reasonable introduction to the subject until I read her conclusion and a separate essay she wrote on the book, in which she stated that her purpose in writing was to place the origin of the bill of rights in a classical, as opposed to a Judeo-Christian, context. While I would agree with her that the typical fundamentalist exaggerates when he paints the framers of the Constitution as almost entirely orthodox Christians, I would disagree with her conclusion that Christianity was not a primary influence. For a better treatment of this view, read Forrest McDonald's "Novus Ordo Seclorum: Intellectual Origins of the Constitution," where he concludes that it is futile to say with any dogmatism that the "founding fathers thought," or "the founding fathers intended," because the framers of the Constitution were a diverse group with diverse backgrounds and interests.