by Lari Don
144 pages, Bloomsbury
Review by Hereward L.M. Proops
It’s not easy being the parent of a little
girl. It seems that everywhere I turn, my daughter is being bombarded with
images of beautiful princesses and waif-like pop-starlets. This isn’t anything
new, of course. The mass media has been filling the heads of little girls with
such bizarre messages for a staggeringly long time. I just haven’t really been
bothered by it before. However, the little baby I once read Moby Dick to every night is now a
bubbly little five year old and, like all five year old girls, she is obsessed
with fairies, unicorns and princesses. When I ask her what she wants to be when
she is older, she replies “a fairy princess”, as if it is the most normal thing
in the world. I don’t want to piss on her chips and point out to her that she
should have more realistic ambitions about adulthood, but I can’t help but
wonder whether some of the princesses she idolises are such great role models.
Cinderella seems to let everyone walk all
over her from the beginning. Passive to the point of being virtually
horizontal, Cinders seems to say “Yes” to everyone; her stepmother, the ugly
sisters and even the fairy godmother manage to push the poor girl around.
Redemption comes in the form of a handsome prince who chooses his
bride (there’s no word of the young lady’s choice in this matter). All
Cinderella has to do to get her happy ending is say “Yes” one more time.
Aurora from “Sleeping Beauty” somehow
decides that Prince Phillip is the one for her after a fleeting encounter with
him in the woods. In all seriousness, I find the speed at which these wilting
maidens fall in love to be a bit worrying. Of course, Aurora has been
essentially abandoned by her real parents and brought up by a trio of wholly incompetent
fairies whose parenting skills would most likely lead to social services being
involved. Starved of real parental affection and human warmth, is it any wonder
the poor girl forms an unhealthy attachment to the first strange man that shows
an interest in her?
We’re told from the outset that Belle from
“Beauty and the Beast” is intelligent and well-read. However, she doesn’t seem
so smart when she becomes a textbook example of Stockholm syndrome and falls in
love with the hideous creature (not just his appearance, the Beast’s behaviour
is totally dickish too) who has taken her prisoner.
Only Merida from Disney’s “Brave” shows an
independent spirit not willing to be confined by arranged marriage.
Unfortunately the way in which the House of Mouse have marketed big-breasted
‘beautified’ Princess Merida products shows how much they really value such a
free-spirited message.
I’m not going so far as to stop my
daughter watching these films, but I do try to broaden her horizons a little
bit by reading her bedtime stories that have strong female characters. This is
why Lari Don’s “Girls, Goddesses & Giants” is so very dear to my heart.
Don’s book collects twelve stories of heroines from around the world. In little
over a hundred pages, the author manages to retell legends and folktales from a
diverse range of cultures, making them accessible enough for young readers
whilst still retaining their unique folky flavour. In one story we are
following a Viking maiden with a cursed sword, in the next we are learning
about wise Sumerian goddesses. Another story will tell us about how a brave
Native American girl sacrificed herself for the benefit of her tribe, whilst
another tells of a daring Japanese pearl-diver who battles a dangerous sea
monster.
Although the stories in the collection are
generally child-friendly, Don doesn’t shy away from the blood and violence of
the original tales. In the Indian myth “Durga and the Demon”, a ten-handed
warrioress is given ten weapons by the gods to engage in bloody combat with a
shape-shifting demon named Mahisha. My personal favourite story, “Chi and the
Seven-Headed Dragon”, sees a teenage girl lopping off the multiple heads of a
girl-eating dragon. More sensitive little ones might find some of the details a
bit grisly but I found it refreshing to read a book aimed at girls that avoided
being stereotypically “girly”. Similarly, Don manages to inject a healthy dose
of scatological humour in the book with the inclusion of Cameroonian folktale
“Mbango and the Whirlpool” where a girl finds herself having to eat a plateful
of pig dung. The French folktale “The Wolf in the Bed” is an old version of Red
Riding Hood which doesn’t include a last-minute rescue by a male woodcutter but
does include a sequence where Red Riding Hood manages to escape from the
cross-dressing wolf by saying she needs to go to the toilet. Any parent will
tell you that children love this sort of coarse humour and there’s no doubt
that Don is aware of her target audience.
Don’s prose is pleasingly direct and
fuss-free. The stories never get bogged down in description and the action (of
which there is much) clips along at a fair old pace. Each tale is the perfect
length for a bedtime story and so never overstay their welcome. The mark of a
good children’s book is its re-readability. Children love repetition but there
is only so many times a parent can return to their child’s favourite bedtime
story before insanity comes a-knocking. “Girl’s, Goddesses & Giants” stands
out as a book that both parent and child will be happy to return to again and
again.
Accessible and readable, with a host of
strong female characters and a diverse, multicultural range of stories, “Girls,
Goddesses & Giants” has become a firm favourite in the Proops household. If
you have a little princess (or prince) whose world-view is becoming a little
too Disney-fied, Lari Don’s book might prove to be the perfect antidote.
Hereward L.M. Proops
Read the author interview here.
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