Vasilisa the Wise and Other Tales of Brave Young Women by Kate Forsyth (review)

Seeking an antidote to Disneyfied fairy tales about "singing teapots, dancing mice and heroines with wasp-thin waists and sweet voices," this Australian import aims to empower girls through its presentation of seven tales featuring intrepid heroines from Russia, Scotland, Norway, France, Germany, and England. Some are deftly retold from oral traditions, and others are lesser-known literary fairy tales. There are still plenty of handsome princes, but relationships between sisters and stepsisters, mothers and children are celebrated alongside the heroines' stalwart independence, cleverness, and kindness. While Forsyth's narrative style is atmospheric and humorous, this doesn't offer much new to the long-established corpus of feminist folklore collections, and the collection's sources are very limited in scope. Carrington's accompanying photographs, dealing primarily in delicate foliage, intricate silhouettes, and starkly skeletal shapes, are often eerily effective but sometimes seem only tangentially connected to the tales. A brief note on each tale's provenance precedes the story, and each is accompanied by additional notes from the author and illustrator. FHK