Brave Margaret

Written by Robert San Souci and Illustrated by Sally Wern Comport (1999)

This book is an adaptation of an Irish fairy tale. This book is about a girl longing to see other places in the world and she happens to meet a man that is traveling north. She ens up falling in love with this man and the two set out to sea together, but on their journey a sea serpent comes looking to kill Margaret. Margaret ends up fleeing the boat, killing the serpent and being thrusts onto land. There the women meets an old woman, a sorceress, who ends up holding her captive as a prize for the man that kills the giant that drove her from her home. Simon shows up and think he can kill the giant, but fails falling to his death. Margaret decides she will try her hand at killing the giant and was able to use the old woman's sword to kill the giant. The old woman uses a special potion to make herself young and bring Margaret's love back to life, the two live happily ever after. I thought this was another interesting fairy tale and I liked that the woman was the one who saved the day in the end. It is always interesting to see what the twist in a fairy tale is going to be. I don't know what it is about these illustrations, but they just seem like the perfect illustrations for a fairy tale and do such a good job of enhancing the text.

This is a book I could use in the classroom with any ages because it is a fairy tale. I think this book would be great for discussing gender roles, especially in fairy tales. This Irish tale breaks away from the norm and has the woman be the savior. I think students should learn that this is perfectly natural and everyone can do anything they put their minds too. Also, because it is a tale from another country it could be included in a text-set including foreign tales. I think the students would enjoy being introduced to fairy tales from other countries and seeing the differences and similarities between the "traditional" tales and the foreign tales. This book does a really good job of using the illustrations to create mood and I want to make sure the students are able to identify this while reading.