"This book is a tribute to mostly unsung heroines of our lives; our mothers. The book is a precious and playful banter between a 70-year-old traditional Punjabi mother and her 45-year-old part-Punjabi, part-cosmopolitan, part-traditional, part-rebel daughter, trying to get along with each other while sliding down the chute of daily life. Based in a Punjabi household, the book has a universal appeal as the author has translated every Punjabi dialogue or expression written in ‘Gurmukhi’ script, into English. The book has a very large-hearted witty approach to life's molehills and mountains alike."
The eleven stories and one novella of Mother Box, and Other Tales bring together everyday reality and something that is dramatically not in compelling narratives of new possibilities. In language that is both barb and bauble, bitter and unbearably sweet, Sarah Blackman spins the threads of stories where everything is probable and nothing is constant. The stories in Mother Box, and Other Tales occur in an in-between world of outlandish possibility that has become irrefutable reality: a woman gives birth to seven babies and realizes at one of their weddings that they were foxes all along; a girl with irritating social quirks has been raised literally by cardboard boxes; a young woman throws a dinner party only to have her elaborate dessert upstaged by one of the guests who, as it turns out, is the moon. Love between mothers and children is a puzzling thrum that sounds at the very edge of hearing; a muted pulse that, nevertheless, beats and beats and beats. In these tales, the prosaic details of everyday life—a half-eaten sandwich, an unopened pack of letters on a table—take on fevered significance as the characters blunder into revelations that occlude even as they unfold.
Entertaining folk and fairy tales from around the world focus on girls who learn from their mothers to face life with a spirit of adventure, kindness, and courage. This book brings together mother and daughter tales from all over the world. Each of the stories has a distinctive theme and flavour, but all of them share a way of looking at the feminine that embraces both dark and light, good and evil, showing us that the path to maturity requires learning how to deal with all aspects of life, and living wholeheartedly, with courage, generosity, and openness to change. The heroines of these stories include familiar figures such as "Demeter and Persephone," from ancient Greece; "Vasilisa the Beautiful," from Russia; and "Naomi and Ruth," from the Jewish tradition. There are also less familiar tales, among them "The Waterfall of White Hair," from China; "Great Mother Earthquake," from the Iroquois; and "The Girl and Her Godmother," from Norway. All of the stories deal with themes that challenge and guide us on many levels: the death of a beloved parent, the jealousy of a stepmother, the necessary hardship that often attends the passage to mature womanhood. At the same time, they show us how joy can arrive at the most unexpected moments, and how courage and adventure can fill every girl's life. Drawing on the collective wisdom of many generations, this is a book for mothers and daughters of today to share and to celebrate both together and as individuals weaving the story of their own lives. AUTHOR: Josephine Evetts-Secker teaches English Literature at The University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. A practising Jungian analyst, she has made a study of the feminine in folk and fairy tale from both a literary and a psychological perspective for many years. The Barefoot Book of Mother & Daughter Tales is her first book for children. Helen Cann was born in 1969. She trained at the School of Art, University of Wales, graduating in 1992. Since then, she has worked as an illustrator and artist, exhibiting in several European countries. Her work is in private collections in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, The United Kingdom and The United States Ages 6+ REVIEWS: "This beautiful book is a treat for the eyes and the soul." --The Story Bag National 80 full colour illustrations Double CD
“With her trademark brio and deep-tissue understanding, Maria Tatar opens the glass casket on this undying story, which retains its power to charm twenty-one times, and counting.” —Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked The story of the rivalry between a beautiful, innocent girl and her cruel and jealous mother has been endlessly repeated and refashioned all over the world. The Brothers Grimm gave this story the name by which we know it best, and in 1937 Walt Disney sweetened their somber version to make the first feature-length, animated fairy tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Since then, the Disney film has become our cultural touchstone—the innocent heroine, her evil stepmother, the envy that divides them, and a romantic rescue from domestic drudgery and maternal persecution. But each culture has its own way of telling this story of jealousy and competition. An acclaimed folklorist, Maria Tatar brings to life a global melodrama of mother-daughter rivalries that play out in unforgettable variations across countries and cultures. “Fascinating...A strange, beguiling history of stories about beauty, jealousy, and maternal persecution.” —Wall Street Journal “Is the story of Snow White the cruelest, the deepest, the strangest, the most mythopoeic of them all?...Tatar trains a keen eye on the appeal of the bitter conflict between women at the heart of the tale...a feast of rich thoughts...An exciting and authoritative anthology from the wisest good fairy in the world of the fairy tale.” —Marina Warner “The inimitable Maria Tatar offers us a maze of mothers and daughters and within that glorious tangle an archetype with far more meaning than we imagine when we say ‘Snow White.’” —Honor Moore “Shocking yet familiar, these stories...retain the secret whisper of storytelling. This is a properly magical, erudite book.” —Literary Review
Tender Morsels is a dark and vivid story, set in two worlds and worrying at the border between them. Liga lives modestly in her own personal heaven, a world given to her in exchange for her earthly life. Her two daughters grow up in this soft place, protected from the violence that once harmed their mother. But the real world cannot be denied forever—magicked men and wild bears break down the borders of Liga’s refuge. Now, having known Heaven, how will these three women survive in a world where beauty and brutality lie side by side?
If you think Joan Rivers said funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things ONSTAGE, wait ’til you read the funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things she said OFFSTAGE…things that will make you laugh out loud…and keep Melissa in therapy for the foreseeable future. The only thing my mother loved more than making people laugh was lying…or as she’d say, “embellishing.” Her motto was: “Why let the truth ruin a good story?” This book contains some of those stories. ***************** “When Joan told a story, the truth disappeared faster than I did.” — Jimmy Hoffa “If you thought Dante’s Inferno was hot, read Lies My Mother Told Me; it’s a five-alarmer.” — Dante’s second wife, Allie “Twelve of my twenty-six personalities loved this book.” — Sybil “The words on the page absolutely crackle and spark; I burned my fingers reading it!” — Annie Sullivan “The Bible may be the good book, but Lies My Mother Told Me is way funnier.” — Matthew 2:14 The Jets. 7 “Lies My Mother Told Me is the feel-good book of 2022.” — Torquemada “All’s not well that ends well. I’ve had massages with happier endings.” — Wm. Shakespeare “Melissa, I don’t care what your mother said in this book, I LOVE your bangs.” — Mamie Eisenhower “Lies My Mother Told Me is so funny even those ‘woke’ m***********s will laugh.” — Lenny Bruce
As heard on NPR's "All Things Considered" and "This American Life, " Leveridge spins the mostly true tales of small-town Lotharios and big-city dreams in a voice that is simultaneously hip and homespun--and utterly his own. National Public Radio sponsorship.
An evil new magic threatens to undo all the progress women have made in the third and final book in Jenna Glass's riveting feminist fantasy series, following The Women's War and Queen of the Unwanted. In the once male-dominated world of Seven Wells, women now control their own reproduction, but the battle for equality is far from over. Even with two thrones held by women, there are still those who cling to the old ways and are determined to bring them back. Now into this struggle comes a darker power. Delnamal, the former King of Aalwell, may have lost his battle to undo the spell that gave women reproductive control, but he has gained a terrible and deadly magic—and he uses these new abilities to raise an army the likes of which the world has never seen. Delnamal and his allies seem like an unstoppable force, destined to crush the fragile new balance between men and women. Yet sometimes it is possible for determined individuals to stem the tide, and it falls to a unique triad of women—maiden, mother, and crone—to risk everything . . . not only to preserve the advances they have won but to change the world one final time. A portion of the author’s proceeds from this book is being donated to Planned Parenthood, in support of women’s reproductive freedom.
