"What makes a hero? Is it being brave, or is it acting while being greatly afraid?" (from "The Girl and the Puma," p. 29)

Such a good collection. Each story is about 5-10 pages, and each has its own full-page illustration. Tales come from Greece, Niger, Germany, Argentina, China, the U.S. (White River Sioux and the Ozark Mountains), Scotland, Poland/Jewish, Japan, France, England. Back matter includes notes on the stories and a bibliography for each.

Cited: The Maid of the North: Feminist Folk Tales from Around the World by Ethel Johnston Phelps ( )

This is a collection of folktales from all over the world in which the main characters are strong females who save the day.

The retelling of the stories in this book are really well done. They are detailed and exciting. There are also great descriptions in the back of the book that give insight into the culture that each story came from and the history of the story itself. This is a great book for older children who are comfortable reading books without pictures and who do not want to stick with a long book.

Ah, here's some bread and butter -- folk tales and female protagonists. This isn't exactly "Rejected Princesses", but it's a nice change from all the fairy tale compilations I've read in the past (Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Book of Goodnight Stories) where, if the hero is a girl, her objective is to learn some kind of domestic skill (like Rumpelstiltskin) or how to stop being a bitch (like The Frog Prince).

In this book, sometimes the female hero is just a substitute for a boy (there's a very Jack and the Beanstalk-like tale at the end), but several remind me of Mulan. There's marriages, there's fighting, there's monsters, as there are in most folk tales. Nothing new there.

Like any short story collection, it's a mixed bag, and it's hard to judge stories written nine hundred years ago. I don't know if there are better collections out there, but this seems like a good one to start with. It's a breath of fresh air from Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, and if you liked Brave, this will accompany the coffee table nicely. ( )

I really liked everything about this book. My favorite aspect of this book is the open letters between a grandmother and her daughter and granddaughters. The letters express how the grandmother wants her daughter and granddaughters to know the stories of female heroes since the prevalent ones are all male leads. After the stories the letter back to the grandmother reads that they know women can be heroes too and they appreciate the reminder of these stories and think that even more so boys and men need to be reminded of these stories. I think these letters really tie the book of stories together and give the book a purpose which I really liked. I also liked the descriptions of main characters within each story. My favorite story and character was Bradamente, the story described her as brave, noble, a great knight and trusting. All of the female heroes in the stories were described which isn’t always present in folktales which I really liked. The main idea of this book is tell the stories of the female heroes in folktales all over the world, and I also think the book emphasizes on equality between men and women, women can do whatever men can do attitude. ( )