The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers: And Other Gruesome Tales

by Jen Campbell, Adam de Souza (Illustrator)

Overview

In this collection, fourteen of fairy tales from around the world are retold for young readers, restored to their original, grisly versions.

Do you dare read this collection of terrifyingly gruesome tales? In this gripping volume, author Jen Campbell offers young readers an edgy, contemporary, and inclusive take on classic fairy tales, taking them back to their gory beginnings while updating them for a modern audience with queer and disabled characters and positive representation of disfigurement.

Featuring fourteen short stories from China, India, Ireland, and across the globe, The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers is an international collection of the creepiest folk tales. Illustrated with Adam de Souza’s brooding art, this book’s style is a totally original blend of nineteenth-century Gothic engravings meets moody film noir graphic novels. Headlined by the Korean tale of a carnivorous child, The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers is a truly thrilling gift for brave young readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780500652589
Publisher:	Thames & Hudson
Publication date:	11/23/2021
Pages:	120
Sales rank:	148,182
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jen Campbell is a Sunday Times bestselling author and award-winning poet. She is the author of ten published books of nonfiction, poetry, short stories, and children’s books. Jen specializes in the history of fairy tales and the representation of disfigurement, giving guest lectures at universities, museums, and book festivals on this topic. Her video installation on the history of fairy tales is currently part of an exhibition at Suffolk University, Boston, MA. Jen’s YouTube channel, which has over 57,000 subscribers, includes popular vlogs on the history of fairy tales.

Adam de Souza is an illustrator and comic artist based in Vancouver, Canada. His clients include Vice, Globe and Mail, and Live Magazine.

Editorial Reviews

10/04/2021

As gleefully retold by Campbell, traditional tales from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and Central America reflect two layers of revision—a reversion to grisly details usually squeamishly edited out, and updated plots and characters that reflect a more inclusive worldview, with queer and disabled protagonists of many ethnicities. Some stories chill, such as “The Souls Trapped Under the Ocean (Ireland),” in which a man who uses sign language is troubled to discover that the merman he loves has “tiny pieces of other people’s souls, all stitched together” in a composite soul. Others are more forthrightly gory: “The Boy Who Tricked a Troll (Norway)” features a disembowelment, with “guts tumbling out” and landing “with a wet splash,” and in “The Princess Who Ruled the Sea (Inuit),” a king uses an axe to cut off his daughter’s fingers “one by one.” De Souza’s conventionally hip, cartoonish illustrations blunt the well-told tales’ sharp edges, but not their messages of resourcefulness and diversity. Ages 9–12. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

2021-10-13
Fourteen international stories embrace their gore.

Poet Campbell directly addresses readers in the foreword to this collection of grisly tales from around the world, explaining that, once upon a time, these “brilliant, horrible tales” were well known. But people altered them and gave them “ ‘happily ever afters’ where nothing really awful happened and, well, a lot of them became boring.” This collection of unsourced stories intentionally avoids the Disney-fication of folklore: A Chinese girl is mummified by the skin of a horse that wants to marry her; a greedy Russian prince marries a button-eyed cuckoo resembling his sister; Korean children are tricked into eating their parents. These tales are disturbing—and satisfyingly so—but in ways that might make it hard to find an appropriate audience. Readers who are ready for stories of wine (or could it be clotted blood?) and seven wives impregnated at once might feel like they’re too old for a collection of fairy tales, although certainly many gore-loving middle-grade readers will devour these. Atmospheric illustrations pair effectively with the text, and Campbell departs from tradition to include overtly feminist stories as well as gay and lesbian romance without a hint of societal condemnation. An afterword explains more about the author’s perspective and reasons behind some of the liberties she takes with the original stories. Characters are presented as racially diverse.

Creepy and progressive. (Folklore. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews