Not One Damsel in Distress

Reviewed by: Sarah Cropley - Scarborough Public Library, Scarborough, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: October 9, 2018

Review

Not One Damsel in Distress: Heroic Girls from World Folklore is a collection of folk and fairy tales retold by Jane Yolen. The selected tales span the globe including Greece, Niger, Argentina, China, White River Sioux, Poland/Jewish, France, and Azerbaijan, among others. Each tale is accompanied by an illustration and features a girl whose cleverness, strength, bravery, courage, or kindness (often more than one) all help her solve the problem and save the day. Yolen includes notes about the origin of each story, as well as the research she did to find and retell it. The illustrations by Susan Guevara fall flat in presentation. They appear washed out, like color illustrations that have been copied in black and white, and do little to carry the inspiring words of Yolen. The print size and length of each tale skew towards a younger audience, while the vocabulary indicates a slightly older audience. All the same, many young readers will enjoy this collection.

Overall Book Score: good