Sibelan Forrester

A fascinating book with insights into Baba Yaga, the famed bony-legged witch of Russian, Slavic, and Ukrainian mythology, though this book focuses on the Russian. The introductions, with literary interpretations of Baba Yaga, were most interesting to me--though the footnotes at the end were also compelling. The bulk of the book contains translated tales. There is such strong redundancy among them, I don't recommend reading many in a row. The Ivans and Vasilias tend to blur together after a while. I can't help but wonder if there would've been a bit more variety if they had expanded the focus beyond Russia--but maybe that would've made no difference at all but in increasing their work. There are color illustrations throughout that include classical depictions of Baba Yaga as well as modern interpretations, including a steampunk take and excerpts from her guest appearance in Hellboy comics.… (mere)