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    Finding Baba Yaga: A Short Novel in Verse
    Unavailable
    Finding Baba Yaga: A Short Novel in Verse
    Unavailable
    Finding Baba Yaga: A Short Novel in Verse
    Ebook130 pages1 hour

    Finding Baba Yaga: A Short Novel in Verse

    By Jane Yolen

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Finding Baba Yaga is a mythic yet timely novel-in-verse by the beloved and prolific New York Times bestselling author and poet Jane Yolen, “the Hans Christian Andersen of America” (Newsweek).

    A young woman discovers the power to speak up and take control of her fate—a theme that has never been more timely than it is now…

    You think you know this story.
    You do not.

    A harsh, controlling father. A quiescent mother. A house that feels like anything but a home. Natasha gathers the strength to leave, and comes upon a little house in the wood: A house that walks about on chicken feet and is inhabited by a fairy tale witch. In finding Baba Yaga, Natasha finds her voice, her power, herself....

    "Jane Yolen is a phenomenon: a poet and a mythmaker, who understands how old stories can tell us new things. We are lucky to have her."—Neil Gaiman

    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateOct 30, 2018
    ISBN9781250163868
    Unavailable
    Finding Baba Yaga: A Short Novel in Verse
    Author

    Jane Yolen

    Jane has been called the Hans Christian Andersen of America and the Aesop of the twentieth century. She sets the highest standard for the industry, not only in the meaningful body of work she has created, but also in her support of fellow authors and artists. Her books range from the bestselling How Do Dinosaurs series to the Caldecott winning Owl Moon to popular novels such as The Devil’s Arithmetic, Snow in Summer, and The Young Merlin Trilogy, to award-winning books of poetry such as Grumbles from the Forest, and A Mirror to Nature. In all, she has written over 335 books (she’s lost count), won numerous awards (one even set her good coat on fire), and has been given six honorary doctorates in literature. For more information, please visit www.janeyolen.com. 

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    Reviews for Finding Baba Yaga

    3.5/5

    42 ratings3 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Quick read for my subway ride while I figured out how to download my next book. I'm sometimes skeptical of books in verse, and the "chapters" in this one were a bit hit-or-miss for me. Most were pretty much there to move the plot along, so not a ton of introspection from the main character.

      Things get more fairy-tale-like as the book progresses, though with clever ties to the modern world to ground the reader--or perhaps confuse them? It's a little too fantasy to be magical realism. I would have liked a little more about the Baba, and perhaps a few more realistic anchors in the almost full-on-fantasy climax. But still, enjoyable with some real gems in the text.

      Anyway, it's such a short book that I'd recommend you take a little time to read it, if you're curious.

      Quote Round-Up

      p. 21) Sometimes a bad word
      is punctuation to a bad day.

      p. 23) Angels are always clean.
      Through the bubbles I ask:
      What about feather mites?

      p. 48) This is a place of correspondence,
      perpetual conversation,
      letters written in the air.

      River asks a question,
      rock asks one back.
      Aspen asks birch, birch asks
      bracken, bracken asks earth,
      earth holds all answers
      tight against her breast.

      p. 85) Cauldron: I just love this whole poem/chapter for subverting fairy tale tropes with modern conveniences, but also pointing out both that there are magical things in our mundane world, and that things we now consider magical may once have been mundane.

      p. 103) ...both so engrossed
      in looking at themselves
      looking at themselves.
      Strikes me as pretty relevant to our social media-obsessed culture. Just thinking about myself, aren't we always eager to see who has been looking at our posts, and aren't we then more likely to look at and respond to theirs in return? We appreciate people who appreciate us. This can be a good and important thing, but the way it's happening in the Baba's house is much like some unhealthy relationships that might form either because of social media or in young people, like Vasilisa.

      p. 119) Like the piano player, I have memory
      in my fingertips. I watch words spill out
      creating worlds, inventing colors,
      bridging generations.
      ...
      ...the memory of creation is here
      in my fingers, as they hold fast
      to the feather weight
      of Baba Yaga's pen.

      p. 125) Baba Yaga swears at objects...
      ... She doesn't swear at people.
      That's what spells are for, she says
      as she teaches me the words.
      I've never heard such a good summary of my personal philosophy of swearing. It always seemed kind of stupid, to not mind swearing in most cases when it's at objects or as grammar, but to be deeply uncomfortable when swearing becomes weaponized in a specific attack. But hat's how I feel, and I guess I might not actually be alone.
    • 4/5
      Nice quasi-update of the Baba Yaga story. I love how Yolen incorporates Vasilisa into the tale and creates a strong context of Natasha's desperate search for a better home. I'm not sure if I knew Finding Baba Yaga was to be a novel in verse when I first heard about it, but I have mixed feelings about the use of the format here now that I've read it. Many of the poems do pop, but I was fully intrigued by the story and would have loved more detail than a N-I-V tends to provide. Still, this is another strong output in Yolen's oeuvre--I look forward to recommending it, especially to teens--and I always welcome new Baba Yaga stories. :)

      ********
      Many thanks to Tor and Net Galley for the advanced copy of this book.
    • 4/5
      I love Jane Yolen. I have since childhood. With over 350 works to her name she is prolific writer that is a must for almost all adolescents. When she is not writing “rip your heart out” historicals like the Devil’s Arithmetic, or cute as a button picture books, she is a master reteller of fairy tales. Her newest take on retelling is the story of Baba Yaga, the Russian witch that lives in a house with chicken feet, that moves at her will. But this isn’t any retelling, in fact, I don’t think of it as a retelling, more as a companion story.Natasha, Tash as she prefers, has run away from home. She has run to the woods and into the house of Baba Yaga. There she will experience heartbreak, security, adventure, and hope. But much of this is said between the lines.This book is entirely in prose, each chapter a few poems long. It has an timeline that feels part of Back to the Future. Tash is modern, lives in the modern world, but once she is with Baba Yaga, it is almost as if time flows backward. When another young woman comes into the house, and seeks her prince, and horseback and drawbridges come into play. The best word I can think to describe this work is interesting. Being in prose leaves so many purposeful holes. Since I was reading a galley, I didn’t have the readers guide at the back, but I almost wanted that, to see if I was getting from the story what the author and publisher were intending.For all intents and purposes this is a fairy tale, even when the book itself is telling you this is not a fairy tale. It does not have the prince kissing his girl at the end as they ride off into the sunset. It is both that you think and what you don’t think of a fairy tale. Love is not love, but something that can rot both people and stories. The villains are not the over dramatized stereotypical men of these types of tales, but the real people from who you need to escape.Overall, I liked this book, but am not sure I understand it all. It does not read like Pay the Piper, or Beauty, but like it’s own space alien thing...like a dream where you only remember bits and pieces. Will this be the book mentioned on Yolen’s tombstone at her death, not even close, but for those of us die hards, it is another tale to spend an afternoon dwelling within.#MountTBR#ReadHarder#Booked2019#LittenLoveBingo#NancyDrewChallenge#BNFantasyChallenge#KillYourTBR#SFFTBRChallenge