1961; Dell Publishing, 1975 Maria Gripe's trilogy is just charming. Josephine chooses her own name because the name Anna Grå is too big for her, like a pair of shoes that she needs to grow into. She is six years old. Her blue sweater is getting too small but
Did you even know about these? The first was written by J.R.R. Tolkien to his children in 1920, and the collection was edited by Baillie Tolkien. (The last one, too, appears in the collection, although it's just a sampling of the oeuvre.) I discovered it this past autumn,
Aristophane’s The Zabîme Sisters Trans. Matt Madden (2010) This was the happy product of a browsing session on a summer day that found me seeking the relief of the public library's A/C. I brought it home and took it to bed on a still-too-hot night, the sort when you really
A giraffe and a cat. Origami gone wild. A fantastic book of transformative tales. A word-lovin' ol' woman, and a sword-wielding girl. The first of these two came to me via Shelagh Rogers' The Next Chapter on CBC. (It's worth repeating; her enthusiasm about all kinds of storytelling is wholly contagious.)
As a child, I didn't enjoy the Ananse stories. I did read a lot of fairy tales and stories about enchantment;I liked the Uncle Remus stories, and I loved the Mouse Woman stories (anyone else in the Mouse Woman fan club?), but Ananse didn't do it for me. That may
