A review by barefootsong
Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World by Kathleen Ragan

3.0

This is a pretty good collection, though not quite as diverse as I would have liked (only one from South America is particularly glaring, though Ragan notes that in her intro). It's also hard with folktales because so many of them were gathered somewhat problematically, particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I wish Ragan had been a bit clearer about the sources (they're all cited in endnotes, but while some of the endnotes provide a bit more context than the bare citation, most of them don't so you'd have to do your own research to find out more about the collectors). Ragan's "interpretations" at the end of each tale are mostly annoying so I'd recommend skipping them. They are mostly recaps of what you just read (it's not like the tales are that long...) and/or try to make awkward parallels to historical events and/or her life.

It's pretty great to read a collection of stories about women, though. I liked that they're not all "good" women, too. There's a nice variety of personality throughout the tales.