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  • Mixed Magic: Global-Local Dialogues in Fairy Tales for Young Readers by Anna Katrina Gutierrez, John Benjamins
  • Susan M. Strayer (bio)
Mixed Magic: Global-Local Dialogues in Fairy Tales for Young Readers. By Anna Katrina Gutierrez, John Benjamins, 2017, 230 pp.

In Mixed Magic, Anna Katrina Gutierrez sets out to accomplish three goals: to problematize the idea of globalization as the spread of Western culture, to redefine globalization as a multiculture exchange rather than as a single discourse, and "to introduce and demonstrate a glocal analysis in a comparative study that recognizes non-Western frameworks for identity and hybridity" (xvi). The book succeeds in offering a thorough methodology for the intertextual analysis of fairy-tale narratives according to globalizing influences and local formations of identity.

The brief introduction offers a succinct explanation of the book's goals before moving into a chapter that explains the methodology and background used in the remaining five chapters of the book. By foregrounding her analysis with this material, Gutierrez enables the reader to better grasp her argument that globalizing processes do not exist in a vacuum, but both change and add additional insights to local narratives, thus creating a glocal space where the interplay of self and Others can be complicated. Chapter 2 examines how both fairy-tale and glocal scripts "are run simultaneously in order to heterogenize multicultural literature, subvert postcolonial ideas of identity, and engage with shifting racial and national identities in a globalized world," using Angelfish (2001) by Laurence Yep, American Born Chinese (2006) by Gene Luen Yang, and Tall Story (2010) by Candy Gourlay as examples (33).

In chapter 3, Gutierrez extrapolates the influence of glocalizing scripts on the formation of identity, and the interplay of the self and Others through Orientalized retellings of "Bluebeard" and "Beauty and the Beast." This is formative for her discussion in chapters 4 and 5, which build on the discussion of identity through the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki, which draw on conceptualizations of Western spaces to retell both Eastern and Western fairy tales, and through examples of mermaid tale types, which "have similar patterns across cultures from the East and West" (145). Chapter 6 acts as a concluding analysis, pulling all of the discussions of overlapping fairy-tale and glocal scripts, self and Others, and ecofeminism, as well as ideas of hegemonic masculinity and femininity, into her analysis of beast-groom tales such as "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Frog Prince." The short conclusion that follows offers a note of hope that the next generation will take the influence of these glocal spaces and [End Page 203] "will learn not to fear diversity and hybridity [but] see it as essential to development and to creating brave new worlds" (208).

The analysis offered in Mixed Magic is thoroughly researched and well put together. The chapters have a logical progression that enables the reader to gain understanding before applying it in the chapter that follows. Gutierrez's personal and research background in Filipino fairy-tale narratives is a strong asset to her work in this book, adding nuance when combined with discussions of Japanese, Korean, and Western adaptations and retellings of these tales. The volume is also beautifully illustrated, which is very nice to see in an academic text, offering key references for the analysis of picture books and films.

The weakest part of this book is that foregrounding the analysis with a chapter of methodology and building on the analysis from chapter to chapter at times made the text feel repetitive rather than insightful. However, the benefits of structuring the book this way make up for any reiteration of key points. The book's title is also somewhat misleading because it offers no hint that Gutierrez's analysis deals with identity and seems more concerned with classifying the book as a study of children's literature, which is somewhat understandable since it is part of the Children's Literature, Culture, and Cognition series. Although the analysis here is focused on fairy tales, Gutierrez states that "globalization essentially forms links between economies, cultures and individuals across world-time and world-space … [M]any complex systems connect and contribute to an increasingly growing...

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