Review: Folktales for Fearless Girls

“Folktales for Fearless Girls” is a collection of folktales from around the world that feature spunky, smart, clever, kind, and fearless girls and women. Author Samantha Newman’s adaptations of the stories are short and use language accessible to young children. Khoa Le’s illustrations are detailed and colorful. They often enhance the tension in the stories.

I love that the girls in the stories are praised for their cleverness. I found it interesting that several wanted to live apart from their groups either to experience solitude or to live in harmony with nature. Each of the girls in these stories is unique.

This book is great for people of all ages who like traditional folktales or stories featuring strong female characters. 

Classroom Considerations: This book would be great to have as an example if students are studying folktales. “Folktales for Fearless Girls” could also be used as a read aloud at times when only a few minutes are left in class. Most of the stories would take 5-15 minutes to read aloud. It would be great if teachers could get access to a slide deck of the illustrations to project in class. This would help students visualize the stories and also give them a great example of illustrations to match a folktale.

I received an advance review copy from NetGalley and Arcturus Publishing for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.