The Hunter Maiden: Feminist Folktales from Around the World

by Ethel Johnston Phelps, Suki Boynton (Illustrator), Renée Watson (Introduction)

Overview

Introduced by award-winning author Renée Watson (Piecing Me Together), these folktales stand as a testament to the girls across histories and cultures who don’t just save their own days—they save the world, too.

An essential part of any progressive parenting bookshelf, these high-spirited adventures feature a diverse cast of female protagonists battling adversity and injustice, from battling evil wizards in Russia to outsmarting tricky demons in South Africa. Standing apart from the fairytales of mainstream media, these stories feature girls who prove themselves against cultural double standards and malicious spirits alike, broadening our understanding of what it means to be a strong girl across continents and heritages.

Feminist Folktales is a four-volume series of folklore showcasing traditional stories from around the world with courageous and heroic girls at the center of every tale. Often having existed only as oral histories, Ethel Johnston Phelps collected and anthologized these tales into two volumes, Tatterhood and The Maid of the North. This series features Phelps’s stories set against new illustrations, with introductions reflecting the enduring cultural significance of these folktales in the present day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558614345
Publisher:	Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Series:	Feminist Folktales Series , #4
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Ethel Johnston Phelps (1914-1984) held a master's degree in medieval literature, coedited a Ricardian journal, and published several articles on fifteenth-century subjects. She compiled two anthologies of feminist folktales from around the world, Tatterhood and The Maid of the North.

Renée Watson’s books include This Side of Home, nominated for the Best Fiction for Young Adults by the ALA; Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills, nominated for the NAACP Image Award in children’s literature; and A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, featured on NBC Nightly News. She is on the Council of Writers for the National Writing Project and is a team member of We Need Diverse Books. She currently teaches courses on writing for children at University of New Haven and Pine Manor College. In the summer of 2016, she launched I, Too, Arts Collective, a nonprofit committed to nurturing underrepresented voices in the creative arts. She also launched the #LangstonsLegacy Campaign to raise funds to lease the Harlem brownstone where Langston Hughes lived and created during the last twenty years of his life.

Suki Boynton is an artist, illustrator, and the senior graphic designer at the Feminist Press. She is a graduate of Connecticut College with a BA in art history and has a degree in graphic design from the Art Institute of Charleston, SC. She currently lives in Newark, NJ.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Renee Watson

MULHA: A South African Tale

THE HUNTER MAIDEN: A Zuni Tale from the American Southwest

ELSA AND THE EVIL WIZARD: A Swedish Tale

MARIA MOREVNA: A Russian Tale

DUFFY AND THE DEVIL: A Cornish Tale

LANVAL AND THE LADY TRIAMOR: A Breton/Celtic Tale

BENDING WILLOW: An American Indian Tale

FINN MAGIC: A Scandinavian Tale

THE OLD WOMAN AND THE RICE CAKES: A Japanese Tale

THE HUSBAND WHO STAYED AT HOME: A Norwegian Tale

SCHEHERAZADE RETOLD: A Persian Tale

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