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A review by athirah_idrus
The Principal Girl: Feminist Tales from Asia by Tutu Dutta, Sharifah Aishah Osman
adventurous
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.5
This book is a collection of 18 stories; 8 retellings of folklores and 10 contemporary stories centering female characters.
The book was a project undertaken after the two editors identified the gap in the market for books with women as the main characters, particularly in Malaysian and Southeast Asian tales and folklores.
The book featured retellings of famous legendary figures like Puteri Gunung Ledang and Hang Li Po, from angles we've never heard before. The standout for me was Red and White by Preeta Samaresan. It was a refreshing and hilarious take on Bawang Merah and Bawang Putih! I was chuckling all through the short 10 pages or so. If you could spare some time to read only one tale from this book, I'd pick this one.
Though I applaud the initiative to bring together all the heroines under one banner, the selection was a bit underwhelming in my opinion. Some of the stories were more of just stories with central female characters, but unfortunately fell short in terms of impact to engage the readers. While they could probably stand on their own as short stories, when compiled under 'feminist tales', perhaps I expected more emphasis on women empowerment.
However, hopefully with the publication of this book, it'd signal that there's a market for feminist tales for our kids. I hope there'd be more books like this in future, putting the spotlight on our legendary women figures, as much as we have on our men.
The book was a project undertaken after the two editors identified the gap in the market for books with women as the main characters, particularly in Malaysian and Southeast Asian tales and folklores.
The book featured retellings of famous legendary figures like Puteri Gunung Ledang and Hang Li Po, from angles we've never heard before. The standout for me was Red and White by Preeta Samaresan. It was a refreshing and hilarious take on Bawang Merah and Bawang Putih! I was chuckling all through the short 10 pages or so. If you could spare some time to read only one tale from this book, I'd pick this one.
Though I applaud the initiative to bring together all the heroines under one banner, the selection was a bit underwhelming in my opinion. Some of the stories were more of just stories with central female characters, but unfortunately fell short in terms of impact to engage the readers. While they could probably stand on their own as short stories, when compiled under 'feminist tales', perhaps I expected more emphasis on women empowerment.
However, hopefully with the publication of this book, it'd signal that there's a market for feminist tales for our kids. I hope there'd be more books like this in future, putting the spotlight on our legendary women figures, as much as we have on our men.