Changing Woman and Her Sisters: Stories of Goddesses from Around the World (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Changing Woman and Her Sisters: Stories of Goddesses from Around the World Maggie Hommel Tchana, Katrin Hyman , ad. Changing Woman and Her Sisters: Stories of Goddesses from Around the World; illus. by Trina Schart Hyman. Holiday House, 200680p ISBN 0-8234-1999-1$18.95 R Gr. 6-8 Daughter-mother duo Katrin Hyman Tchana and Trina Schart Hyman team up, in Hyman's last artistic endeavor before her death in 2004, to portray ten stories of goddesses from a broad range of world cultures and religions. Representing wide-ranging perspectives from Inuit, Mayan, Celtic, and Hindu to the Fon of West Africa, the tales each begin with an informational paragraph that briefly outlines context then move into a story retold from collected and documented goddess myths. The stories are powerful and sometimes authentically violent—the father of Sedna, deity of the Inuits, cuts off her hands and allows her to drown to save himself, and the Celtic goddess Macha is forced to race a team of horses while she is giving birth. They also portray love, faith, and compassion—Shinto's Kuan Yin devotes herself to eliminating suffering, and the Navajo Changing Woman lovingly prepares a good earth in which humans will dwell. The collection's breadth makes it a valuable sampling of world mythology, with the engrossing goddess theme tying the tales together; adult guidance or outside research may be necessary for [End Page 37] young readers to fully appreciate these complex tales, which are often intertextually intertwined with larger bodies of mythology. Tchana makes the most of the brief space available, however, to preserve the original culture in her retellings and to make each tale independently readable. Hyman's art departs somewhat from her customary detailed linework, instead portraying each goddess in acrylic paintings layered among collaged photographs and found items, tapping into the native artistic styles of the tales' cultures and effectively interweaving the traditional and modern. A thorough artist's note, bibliography for each tale, afterword, and author's note are included. This will be a rich resource for those students wishing to delve more deeply into world legends than the requisite classical mythology unit allows. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois