(4) K-3 Illustrated by Hwei Lim. Arnaq (the Inuktitut word for woman) is inveigled into an unhappy marriage by a shapeshifting shaman. While rescuing her by boat, Arnaq’s father is frightened into drowning her, whereupon she transforms into the vengeful spirit of the sea. This intriguing retelling of the Inuit marine goddess's origin story includes gory details and sends complex messages about women's roles, needs, and impact that seem too inconclusive for young readers. Earth-toned digital watercolor illustrations dramatize the artic setting. Back matter includes an afterword and a pronunciation guide/glossary.

Reviewer: Summer Edward

(2) K-3 Two siblings should be going to sleep, but one of them asks the other, "Can you tell me a story? A SCARY one." That opens the door to three folktales featuring Liniers's distinctive comic-panel treatment. In "The Mermaid and the Pink Dolphin," a captain and his pet monkey navigating the Amazon River are drawn to the singing of the Iara (river mermaid). Following the Iara's tunes takes the captain on a mysterious expedition. "The Owl of Doom" tells of a witch-owl with a woman's face and its call of death. The people live in fear until a child summons the power of music. In "The Evil Light," gauchos riding their horses through the pampas are approaching the sunset hour -- a time the evil light appears and they will have to confront their fears. The siblings' interjections throughout add humor, and the India ink and watercolor illustrations bring the right touch of the macabre to these tales. A useful and informative introduction by David Bowles provides historical and political context, and notes about the mythological creatures and a bibliography are appended. This volume creatively showcases the importance and power of telling and passing stories through generations via oral, textual, and visual narratives. Concurrently published in Spanish as Cuentos de noche: Relatos de Latinoameric.

Reviewer: Sujei Lugo | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Kristy Cameron. Renowned Indigenous storyteller Locke (Lakota and Anishinabe) provides an engaging retelling of a Lakota legend. Wakhán Thánka (the Great Spirit) creates the world in seven days. After sending power to the East, South, West, and North, Wakhán Thánka creates mountains, trees, plants, animals, and water. On day five, the ancestors are put into motion in Grandfather Sky; on day six, ­Grandmother Earth receives the gift of creation. Finally, on the seventh day, Wakhán Thanka makes the greatest gift: the human spirit. But where to put it? Buffalo, Bear, and other animals have ideas, but in the end Wakhán Thánka places it at the center of all. "The intersection of everything in this universe, this creation, is within each one of us. We have the responsibility to guard this ­precious gift as it does not belong to us but to Wakhán Thánka." Locke's lively text and Cameron's (Métis) brightly colored and textured stylized illustrations bring a dynamism to the tale. A list of Lakota words in the text is appended.

Reviewer: Nicholl Denice Montgomery | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) K-3 This story (inspired by the Chinese myth of Nüwa, who crafted humankind) takes readers and listeners on a journey back to a time "when the world was still young," with Nüwa as the sole inhabitant yearning for a simple yet profound thing: someone to say "hello" to. After reaching out to the creatures around her with no response, she felt sad and "cried for three whole days," creating a gigantic puddle around her. She then molds a new friend from the mud, and they greet each other with a heartfelt "hello." Nüwa continues, creating more friends who spread across the world, building "homes and farms and cities" and raising their own families. This leads to a double-page spread with people saying "hello," each in a different language. The concise narrative beautifully conveys Nüwa's longing for companionship. The illustrations, rendered in bold neon colors, particularly a vibrant pink, bring this world playfully to life. This heartwarming and visually captivating book emphasizes the significance of reaching out and forging connections and underscores the enduring importance of communication and community.

Reviewer: Weileen Wang | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(1) 4-6 These graphic-format retellings of three Indonesian folktales steer their female protagonists away from traditional "superficial tropes" and render them as empowered, intelligent characters who determine their own fates. A young woman trapped in a snail's shell by her jealous younger sister is finally freed when she seeks to help someone other than herself in "Keong Mas." A newly blended family brings two girls together as sisters in "Bawang Merah Bawang Putih." Though tragedy unexpectedly strikes, the sisters keep their hearts open and forge a path forward together: "because Merah had Putih and Putih had Merah. And that was enough." A medicine woman in "Timun Mas" builds a life for herself despite opposing societal norms and expectations. When a giant knocks on her door demanding that she surrender what she deems most precious, she refuses to accept defeat. The panel illustrations feature deep purples, earthy greens, and rich golden hues. Angkasa's expressive art transports readers through the rolling waves, flowing rivers, and lush forests that make up the over seventeen thousand Indonesian islands. Brief prose retellings of the original stories are provided for reference and comparison; an author's note makes personal connections.

Reviewer: Gabi K. Huesca | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) YA Illustrated by Chris Riddell. Crossley-Holland (the Arthur Trilogy, including The Seeing Stone, rev. 11/01) presents a retelling of several Arthurian stories and parts of Thomas Malory's sweeping Morte d'Arthur. He has shaped his work "to tell one story illustrating each stage of Arthur's dream and the idea behind it... Each tale springs from a strong moral sense of what's right, what's wrong, and how we're all part of it." Readers will find the arc of Arthur's childhood, his dream of the Round Table and its shattered fallout, and his death at his son's hand. Crossley-Holland doesn't shy away from tales that are difficult, perhaps even off-putting to our current sensibilities (the story of Erec and Enide springs to mind) or from the strange, stark Christian images--such as the Holy Grail and the Fisher King--of the knights' quests. The volume is all the more challenging and thought-provoking for it. His attentiveness to the natural world and his clear, jewel-like language are counterpointed by Riddell's abundant illustrations, which rather than idealizing scenes offer vague, untidy landscapes and dwell on the blood, horror, and grotesquerie of men wounding one another. While Riddell's depicted women tend toward the willowy, his knights, with their stubble, unkempt hair, and mobile facial features, have a spotty, irregular realism that brings them into our world of imperfections.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Henry Cole. In this folktale retelling, Pepe the parrot doesn't know what he's getting himself into when he invites his crush, Carina Felina, over for some homemade Cuban crackers. Carina, a fluffy aqua-colored feline with a Cheshire Cat grin, immediately polishes off all one hundred crackers. When Pepe protests, she proclaims, "Why, I'm Carina Felina! / I do what I like and / I eat what I wish. / Step out of my way, / or be my next dish!" and snarfs him down too. Carina then struts through town, eating anyone who doesn't heed her warning. She grows comically larger with every meal, and the cartoonlike illustrations show the people and animals inside her belly. The mayhem finally stops when two cangrejos--crabs who have been watching the whole time--goad her into eating them. In her stomach they declare, "!Basta! Enough!" They snip themselves and everyone else free, and Carina is left to stitch herself up. Deedy's catchy text is clever through the final playfully gruesome scene. Cole emphasizes the humor in the tale with pencil and digital illustrations that feature expressive townsfolk and animals. Storytime listeners will be chanting along with Carina's refrain by her second snack and will enjoy going back to search for the two cangrejos in each encounter. Back matter includes information about the folktale (told in many cultures), a glossary of Spanish words, and a recipe for Cuban crackers--bake at your own risk. Will be published in a Spanish paperback edition in September 2023 as El cuento de Carina Felina.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

(2) K-3 Retold by Trina Schart Hyman. Hyman’s much-loved retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” (a 1984 Caldecott Honor Book), with its endearing, pigeon-toed protagonist, is here reissued for a new generation of readers, with a foreword by Jason Chin. Chin notes the vitality of the art and the empathy Hyman had for her characters—extending beyond the humans: “the wolf and the cats, the ferns and mushrooms, the basket and the wine bottle.” Lush, detailed illustrations present a bucolic setting of cozy, flower-filled cottages and sun-dappled woods; the wolf is variably smarmy and scary; and don’t miss a heroic black cat. The wonderfully decorative borders, which often contain segues to the next page-turn, are a highlight.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

(2) PS Adapted by Ibram X. Kendi. Illustrated by Kah Yangni. In this board-book adaptation of a pourquoi story chronicled in Hurston's 1935 anthology Mules and Men, Kendi and Yangni collaborate to introduce young children to the African American folklore tradition and to Hurston's importance within that tradition. "The Creator wuz all finished and thru makin' de world," but then notices that the world looks too bare. So they add "trees and grass and flowers and plants"; when the flowers complain about feeling lonesome, the Creator goes "'round clippin' li'l pieces offa everything," thereby creating butterflies. Yangni's vibrant mixed-media illustrations span a range of settings--rural and urban, historical and current--accompanied by brilliantly colored butterflies throughout. "Butterflies were made to keep de flowers company" is the satisfying resolution. Kendi (who previously adapted a Hurston short story in Magnolia Flower, rev. 11/22) preserves Hurston's use of Black English, and his closing note provides rich historical context about both Ebonics and the importance of Hurston's work as a folklorist.

Reviewer: Kim Parker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(1) K-3 "One night...Otilla finally ran away." After trekking through the snowy forest, she knocks at the door of a large old house. A skull in the window says he'll let the girl in if she'll carry him: "Rolling around is difficult for me." "All right," Otilla agrees, and soon they are touring his home together. Otilla finds there's a lot she can do for the skull, who can no longer build a fire or make tea or reach the pears on the tree. (She kindly feeds him a bite of pear, which "went through him and fell onto the floor. 'Ah, delicious,' said the skull.") They dance together in the ballroom, and when the skull warns her of the headless skeleton that chases him every night, Otilla sets out to help her new friend, handily destroying the skeleton. In gratitude, the skull invites her to stay with him, and, of course, she accepts. Unflappable Otilla and the unfailingly polite skull make for odd but exemplary companions in this well-paced tale, told in five parts (with most split into three brief sections) and illustrated in classic, deadpan Klassen style with speckled art that's both mesmerizing and dryly hilarious. The dark tones of the art are warmed by slants of peach-hued winter sunlight; like the scary-funny story, darkness and light work in tandem surprisingly well. An author's note expands on the background of this folktale retelling.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) PS In this retelling of an Aesop's fable, three elderly sisters don their patched-up coats--yellow, blue, and red--and head out for a walk. The next two spreads are vertically oriented: readers turn the book to the right to see the depiction of the Sun shining with joy upon the women; in the next spread they turn it left to see the petulant North Wind. The Sun and North Wind agree to see which one can remove the sisters' coats. The North Wind wreaks havoc, but the sisters, who hold fast to their coats throughout the onslaught, recognize the "lies," "spitefulness," "mockery," "pity," and "loneliness" inherent in his taunts. The gentle heat of the Sun, however, prompts the sisters to remove their coats. Stead writes with a spare and eloquent lyricism. He weaves a tender memory motif with the notion of threads--"memories began to unspool like brightly colored thread"--and the yellow, blue, and red both of the birds who leave and then return and of the sisters' clothing. At one point, the sisters wave to the birds and "wove the sight into a memory to be kept for later." Stead's line work is beguiling: the scribbly North Wind conveys anger and chaos; scenes with the Sun contain delicate lines as well as warm, gentle hues in colored pencils. A moving and welcome retelling, like a breath of fresh air.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) K-3 Based on a Scandinavian folktale, this lesser-known d’Aulaires’ picture book, first published in 1943, recalls Aesop’s fable “The Milkmaid and Her Pail.” An old woman walks into town to sell a basketful of eggs laid by her one reliable hen. Along the way, she speculates how she might turn the profits into, first, a few more hens, then a whole henhouse full, and so on until she has become a wealthy lady who turns her nose up at everything--and as she turns her own nose up while she imagines, the basket of eggs on her head crashes to the ground. She laments her lost future for a moment but then heads home grateful­ for all she has already. Not unusually for its time, the book’s pages alternate between full-color art (in what looks like pastels) and black-and-white (in pencil). Both hold viewers’ attention­ with their homey details, appealing farm animals, and apple-cheeked, upbeat protagonist.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

(1) K-3 Rabbit keeps the moon shining brightly by trekking across the world to bring back aguamiel, "the precious, glowing nectar that brims in the heart of the first and holy maguey." She fills a jug with this sweet agave sap, then pours it into the moon. Rabbit's rival, Opossum, pokes a hole in the moon and steals the sap, thus unintentionally extinguishing the moonlight. Luckily, he remembers a treasure under the earth and brings back a pot of fire, "prepared by mighty gods as a gift for future humans who might shiver in the dark." He sets this pot of burning sun high in the sky, and now he and Rabbit work together as ­Guardians of Light. Stunning illustrations by acclaimed Mexican artist Álvarez feature a velvety blue-black backdrop of a sky, stars providing only pinpricks of light, while the glowing moon is depicted as a round, two-handled jar. Opossum's reddish-brown fur matches the terra cotta pot of fire he tends, and ­Rabbit's fur is the same blue-green as the magical agave plant, whose spiny leaves curl gracefully upward, like an octopus floating in the dark sea of the night sky. Bowles (translator of The ­Sea-Ringed World, rev. 3/21) developed the text for this previously wordless book originally published in Mexico as Noche antigua. His spellbinding, poetic text is lyrical but crisp. A detailed note at the back explains that the tale is an original weaving together of several stories from Mesoamerica.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) 4-6 Retold by Pirkko-Liisa Surojegin. Translated by Jill G. Timbers. These twenty-six Nordic tales are mostly inspired by stories from the author-illustrator's native Finland. In a brief introduction, Surojegin explains that "the good-natured, trusting bear and wolf and the sly fox usually play the main roles in these tales, which are often set on a traditional farm at the edge of the forest." Indeed, Bear and Wolf are big and strong but terribly gullible, while smaller, super-wily Fox is constantly finding ways to nap or eat while they end up doing all the work--farming, threshing grain, building roads. Other forest and farm animals take part in the shenanigans, which include several pourquoi tales ("Fox Gets a White Tip on His Tail," for one). All the stories are accompanied by finely detailed illustrations--from vignettes to richly colored double-page spreads--of the animals and woodsy Scandinavian setting. The humorous retellings are for the most part linked together and intended to be read in order, and the varied length of the tales will help hold readers' attention.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2022

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Jon Klassen. Frequent collaborators Barnett and Klassen serve up a delectable rendition of the oft-retold folktale. The bare-bones narrative "clip clops" along with abundant humor and plenty of verbal delights, repetition, and rhyme ("Who seeks to reach the grassy ridge? / Who dares to walk across my bridge?") as the brash, blustery bully of a troll gleefully lists all the ways he loves to eat goat. Droll digitally compiled illustrations created with ink, watercolor, and graphite capture a proscenium view of the action above and below the bridge and depict a large, rodent-like troll who dwells in the muck of a bone-strewn riverbank. How the menacing meat-eater gets his comeuppance and the clever brothers go on to enjoy grassy glory on the other side of the bridge are the stuff of legend, and here they're given a playful twist by these masters of the deadpan. The tale wraps up with the troll floating down the river and around a bend. "Where he ended up I really can't say. I've never gone that far. There are too many mosquitoes." Sure to be a read-aloud favorite, this engaging interpretation will sit comfortably next to classic versions by Marcia Brown, Glen Rounds, Paul Galdone, and Jerry Pinkney.

Reviewer: Luann Toth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2023

(2) K-3 Translated by Jeremy Tiang. "Deep in the Kunlun Hills, there lived a mystical deer," the Nine Color Deer, so called because of the varied colors in her fur. One day she saves a drowning man (by leaping from wave to wave and walking on water), and in return asks only that he not tell anyone where she is. He keeps his promise until the imperial palace announces that the queen had dreamt of a magical deer with great powers that can "help our kingdom prosper," and the king summons assistance to find the deer. The lure of the reward money, which would aid his poor family, causes the man to break his long-held promise, and he leads the king and soldiers to the Nine Color Deer. The deer's magic saves her ("a dazzling white light blossomed around her") from the soldiers' arrows; the kingdom and the man she'd once saved realize the errors of their ways. Translator Tiang's fascinating closing note relates that this story's first iteration is from two thousand years ago; Duan's version is inspired by the famous Dunhuang paintings in China's Mogao Caves. Her textured illustrations (painted with a "comprehensive technique, involving acrylic, mineral color and Photoshop"), using a soft, subdued palette, honor the style of the original cave paintings; they are wispy and fine-lined and capture the delicacy and eloquence of the mystical deer and her world. A beguiling and welcome new telling of a traditional tale.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2022

(3) PS Illustrated by Wazza Pink. In the same vein as the authors' A Bucket of Blessings (retelling an Indian myth) and The Wheels on the Tuk Tuk, the mother-son coauthors recast Mother Goose classics for an audience of culturally South Asian tots. "Jai Be Nimble," "Humpty Dumpty," "Pat-a-Naan," and more: each nursery rhyme maintains the original's characteristic rhythm while subbing-in one or more Hindi words (defined with pronunciation below). In parallel with the Sehgals' English-Hindi mashups, the digital illustrations include both familiar Mother Goose imagery and South Asian cultural details, such as traditional clothing and lotus design motifs.

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen

(2) 4-6 Translated by Charlotte Barslund. Illustrated by Miki Jacobsen. The folktales and myths from Greenland collected here are based on stories recorded by Knud Rasmussen in the early twentieth century. Reteller Bjerre says in an author's note that she focused on the stories involving children and young people, but that does not mean the tales are sweet; far from it. In them, children are abducted, orphaned, starved, tormented, and abandoned but usually persevere through their hardships. In "Kaassassuk the Orphan," for instance, a boy with giant nostrils is treated cruelly by all; he calls on a monster, who violently shakes him until he becomes the strongest person in the settlement and eventually kills everyone except the three people who had been kind to him. Hunting, killing, and skinning animals is a prominent feature (with moments such as harp seals having their heads smashed together), but the brutality is balanced by humor (if earthy: lots of pee and poo) and compelling action. The thirty-five stories vary greatly in length, with some many pages long and others very short, such as "The Child Snatcher," in which a boy escapes a monster by sticking his toe in its nose and shouting, "If I were you, I would be very scared of my big toe. Because it eats monsters and people!" Copious watercolor illustrations by Greenlandic artist Jacobsen are often comical, always loose and lively, in warm blues and browns, with a full-page illustration for each story and occasional small, labeled pictures of animals and objects. A glossary explains some of the Inuktitut words, along with pronunciation tips; there are no individual source notes.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2021

(1) 4-6 Illustrated by Jeffrey Alan Love. In five stories, Norse gods cross the rainbow bridge from Asgard and visit us below, in the world of humans, dwarfs, and giants. Loki saves a child from being kidnapped by a troll; a mysterious laborer helps put to rest the corpse of a miserly husband; a little girl is blessed with the gift of blue flowering flax. These are stories full of riddles, trickery, bounty, and an overwhelming awareness of the hugeness, littleness, and beauty of the natural world. Each is "blood-bright and...relevant today," writes Crossley-Holland in the foreword: true, and in no small measure due to his own strong, musical prose and Love's deep, dark illustrations, in as monumental a style as geological features. Although the tales are set in the past, there's an immediacy and intimacy to the narrative voice that brings them right into the space of reader or listener. "Will that be you?" the collection ends; "Will it be your tongue I touch with the mead of poetry?" "The awkward black ribs of the mountain"; "a lap of green land"; "a wicked army of rock slabs"--the earth comes alive through such language, while cosmic radiance pours down the page in Love's art. Even Crossley-Holland's sentence structure upholds and deepens the tales' mingling of earthly physicality and unpredictable, spirited gods. With their unexpected turns and in the author's fresh, poetic language, these tales become exceptionally mysterious and captivating.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2022

(1) 4-6 Translated by David Bowles. Illustrated by Amanda Mijangos. In this ambitious and expansive compendium, Esperón collects and presents lore and legend from a wide array of Indigenous peoples from across the Americas, a.k.a. "the sea-ringed world." The short, engaging selections are based on traditional tales that predate European invasion, some only existing as fragments that have been passed down orally through the generations. The fifty-six stories are identified by their cultures and geographic regions and begin with such folkloric openings as, "So long ago that the years are impossible to count..."; "Before time began..."; "In the remotest of times before anything was..." The entries relate creation tales, environmental wisdom, and sage advice for societies in existential crisis. Readers encounter a Spider Grandmother, a Cloud Serpent, enchanted hummingbirds, white-faced bears, llamas, whales, and more. The intriguing figures include Py'aguasu, the Guarani "god of words and good conduct and divine love," and Uumarnituq, "one of the first two men in Inuit tradition" who "becomes pregnant and transforms into a woman." Mijangos's stunning three-color graphics--black, white, and deep blue--elevate each story and underscore the volume's themes with their evocative motifs and naturalistic flow. Extensive back matter (though individual story sources are not given) rounds out this impressive, handsome, and universally appealing volume.

Reviewer: Luann Toth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2021