Gudinder og heltinder

by Jean Menzies

Forskellige kulturer, religioner og mennesker opfatter nogle gange de samme begivenheder forskelligt. Nogle af historierne er hellige og afspejler menneskers tro i fortid og nutid. Fortællinger om gudinder og heltinder har ændret sig i tidens løb, men de er stadig fascinerende på hver deres måde.

Denne samling af 80 spændende fortællinger handler om en lang række inspirerende kvindeskikkelser, lige fra gudinder, magiske væsener og mennesker, som alle bør kende.

Følg MULAN i kamp, oplev RHIANNONS magi, og stå ansigt til ansigt med heksen BABA JAGA!

Genres: Mythology, Nonfiction, History, Childrens, Middle Grade, Picture Books, Greek Mythology

160 pages, Hardcover

Published November 6, 2023

Reviews

[Anubha (BooksFullOfLife, LifeFullOfBooks) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed learning about powerful women written in different myths and legends by different cultures all over the globe.

[Veronika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nádherne ilustrovaná zbierka vyše 80 profilov ženských hrdiniek, bohýň a mytologických postáv z rôznych kultúr sveta v tomto knižnom spracovaní je rovnako, ako aj predošlé tri knihy zo série skutočne vydarená a zaujme nie len mladších čitateľov, ale aj tých starších, keďže ja osobne, som veľkú časť z týchto postáv ani nepoznala a ich príbehy boli pre mňa obohacujúce, keďže som spoznala nové mýty či legendy.

Autor v publikácii pokryl mnoho kultúr a tentokrát sa nezameral len na jednu oblasť sveta, ale urobil prierez celým svetom a vybral zaujímavé ženské rôznorodé stvorenia. Niektoré z nich budú čitateľom určite dôverne známe, ale mnohé poznať nebude a vďaka famóznym ilustráciam, ktoré doplňajú príbeh im daná postava "ožije" pred očami.

Text je veľmi ľahko čitateľný aj pre menších čitateľov a milovníci rozprávok, mýtov a legiend si prídu na svoje. Spracovanie knihy je kvalitné a pevné a na jej vizuály si autori dali skutočne záležať. Aj keď kniha pokrýva veľa postáv a miest, je skutočne prehľadná a miestami až encyklopedicky spracovaná. Ja oceňujem rozdelenie postáv podľa typu, lebo to tak bolo pre mňa zaujímavejšie a prehľadnejšie som vnímala kultúrne rozdiely.

Veľmi pekná edícia, ktorá pohladí nie len dušu, ale aj oči čitateľa.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very easy to read. Beautiful illustrations.
A concise and fun collection of stories.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jean Menzies is not a well-known other in my country so when I saw this at the local library I ripped it off the shelf as I couldnt believe my luck. The book itself is interesting and the knowledge of the heroines and goddesses is so easily understood. The illustrations of this books were immaculate. Got to get my hands on a copy for my self.

[Yana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here are my thoughts as I progressed through the book:

2% I think this book is might be new generation of history books for children; its uniqueness is expressed in a multinational world history. It gives perspective to children, e.g. in this book they're 15 goddesses of death, a child might pose a question rightly so which one is THE goddess of death. Why is that they are 15 and they all have different names and they come from different places which one is the true one? And their answer would be they come from different nations different parts of the world with different legends and that's how children learn context and perspective. That's how they know there is not one single truth there are angles to this shit.

10% Don’t get me wrong there is still fucked up stories in this book like that Egyptian story where a God was disrespectful to the goddess then he went to her palace and knocked her down, assaulted her essentially and the solution to piece them back was to marry one another. Let’s sum it up he was disrespectful he assaulted the goddess and they were like let's marry you two. If you ask me we could do without this story.

25%. It is also notable in the stories that the men are the problem, they are the ones that wreak havoc across the world. Keep in mind though the book is gorgeous and well organized and accessible and short of all the aggressive sexism it is still a basic story of women being sold, father's permission being asked for marriage; it's all the same ancient bullshit. It's historically accurate myths the stories themselves are predictable and dare I say boring.

30%. I would love to see some of these stories transformed into full retellings and to read the novels with gender reversed plots, that would be very interesting.

55%. Every fucking story begins with a girl that's pregnant or in labor or promised to a husband or waiting for her husband or at a wedding ceremony. Every fucking story.

DNF

[Lani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version and while the content was interesting enough, the narrator was grating. She also got multiple pronunciations wrong.

[ZeilenZauber · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘*‘ Meine Meinung ‘*‘
Es war total spannend herauszufinden, welche Frauen aus weltweiten Sagen und Mythen ihren Weg in dieses Buch gefunden haben. Das Buch ist in drei Hauptbereiche aufgeteilt. Beginnend mit den Göttinnen über die magischen Wesen bis hin zu den Sterblichen, wird das Ganze mit Informationen über Mythen und ihre Ursprünge abgerundet.
Jede Frau wird mit ihrem Namen, seiner Aussprache, ihrer Kultur und Kurzbeschreibung vorgestellt. Anschließend wird die Geschichte, der Mythos von ausgewählten Frauen erzählt. Es sind weltumspannende Kulturen genannt. Chinesisch, ägyptisch, griechisch sind bekannt, aber auch akkadisch und sumerisch, yorubisch und aztekisch sind vertreten. Bei yorubisch war mir klar, dass es sich um afrikanische Kultur handelt. Wohingegen ich akkadisch erst mal recherchieren musste. Und habe ich mich dann gefragt, ob die Altersgruppe nicht zu niedrig gewählt ist. Ja, der Schreibstil ist einfach und passt für ältere Kinder bzw. junge Teenager, aber bei den Kulturen oder auch den doch teilweise recht bizarren Mythen, fand ich das Alter zu niedrig. Natürlich können auch Eltern mit ihrem Kind das Buch gemeinsam lesen, doch das geschieht heute viel zu selten.
Aber zurück zum Buch. Locker 60% der genannten Ladies kannte ich noch nicht mal vom Namen und selbst bei denen, die mir vom Namen her bekannt waren, konnte ich Neues lernen. Da fällt mir sofort Hathor ein. Dass sie, als Liebesgöttin, sich in Sachmet, die Kriegsgöttin, verwandelt, war mir neu.
Wenn die Texte in Textbubbles verpackt wären, könnte das Buch als Graphic Novel durchgehen. Denn die Zeichnungen sind gigantisch. Detailfreudig, farbenfroh und genau auf die Bereiche abgestimmt. So wird zum Beispiel das Kapitel „Liebes- und Kriegsgöttinnen“ in Gelb-, Orange- und Rottönen gehalten und Akzente werden mit Konträrfarben gesetzt.
Dieses Buch bietet nicht nur Informationen über sagenhafte Frauen, sondern diese werden auch noch hübsch bildlich in Szene gesetzt. Und eins ist klar, diese Frauen sind stark und überwinden die Hindernisse, die ihnen das Leben entgegenschleudert, absolute Power Frauen. Diese Buch kann man immer wieder zur Hand nehmen, Texte lesen, Bilder angucken und neue Details entdecken und sich immer wieder Motivation bei diesen Frauen holen. Auch wenn ich mit der Alterangabe der Zielgruppe hadere, vergebe ich gern 5 Heldinnen-Sterne.
‘*‘ Klappentext ‘*‘
Willkommen in der Welt der Göttinnen und Heldinnen!
Wie hat Scheherazade den König überlistet? Was hat es mit Pandora und ihrer geheimnisvollen Büchse auf sich? Dieses Buch lässt Kinder ab 10 Jahren in die Geschichten von über 80 mutigen Heldinnen, legendären Göttinnen und sagenumwobenen Frauen eintauchen. Wunderschöne Illustrationen und atmosphärische Texte erzählen von starken Frauenfiguren aller Kulturen und entführen die jungen Leser*innen in die Welt der Sagen und Mythen
Inspirierende Geschichten von sagenhaften Frauen
• Über 30 Mythen werden in diesem Kinderbuch stimmungsvoll und altersgerecht zum Leben erweckt
• Farbenfrohe Steckbriefe erzählen von den wichtigsten Göttinnen und praktische Erklärungen helfen bei der richtigen Aussprache der Namen
• Ein fantastisches Kennenlernen mit den weiblichen Vorbildern für bekannte und weniger bekannte Superheldinnen und Fantasy-Figuren wie Mulan
• Liebevoll gestaltet von Katie Ponder, preisgekrönter Illustratorin des Bestsellers „Griechische Mythen und Sagen“

[Mackenzie]

This was very cool and mentioned a ton of female figures I’d never heard of, and had some cool legends that they depicted. And the illustrations are gorgeous

For the children’s librarian staff meeting, we had to choose an informational book.


Tons of subsections
Pretty art
Goddesses
Very cool overviews and then folk tales!!!
Beautiful illustrations
Tons of information
But very cool to learn about so many female figures and excellent if you were doing a project on female legends/myths!
Some of these are so sad! Or they’re abbreviated and don’t have as much detail but they cover a ton of stories from all over the world so
And cool when they reference previous sections again later? Like pele Hawaiian goddess of fire info and then story about Hawaiian hula goddess and mentions Pele her older sister
I liked the Inuit goddess of the sea, lost her fingers but away from any husband or father :)
The art is so pretty!
Magical beings fairies and nature spirits!!!
Rhiannon being clever
Whuppity Stoorie is a hilarious name
Melusine French
Maman Dlo Trinidadian and tobagadian stories with similarities to the little mermaid
Medea
Shapeshifters- Selkies!
Mortals
Queen of Sheba
Draupadi’s 5 husbands bc one won the contest and said “mom look what I found” and she said “make sure to share it with your brothers” not knowing he was talking about his wife, and the brothers always listened to their mother, but she said okay you can share me
Salome king herod’s daughter who danced
Shahrazad and 1001 tales, love
I liked the last part on how stories are recorded, oral history or statues and pictures
And then about books and scrolls, the Mahabharata and others
Worshipping goddesses, festivals, temples

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich habe ein Rezensionsexemplar vom Verlag erhalten. Dies beeinflusst nicht meine Meinung.

Sagenhafte Frauen ist ein weiteres sehr schön illustriertes und informatives Buch vom DK Verlag.
Der Illustrations-Stil ist konsistent und passend zum schriftlichen Inhalt des Buches, wo er die Texte ergänzt.
Die Texte sind einfach und verständlich geschrieben und kurz genug gehalten, dass auch jüngere Leser*innen nicht das Interesse verlieren.
Besonders positiv hervorheben möchte ich hierbei, dass es unter jeder Person und jedem Wesen, die vorgestellt wurden, einen Hinweis zur Aussprache des Namens gab.
Auch fiel mir sehr positiv auf, dass sich hier – anders als bei den meisten Mythologie-Büchern – nicht auf griechische, römische und nordische Mythologie konzentriert wurde, sondern Geschichte und Charaktere/Wesen aus den Mythologien der gesamten Welt behandelt wurden – ohne eurozentrischen Fokus (größtenteils). Somit ist dies tatsächlich ein generelles Informationswerk, dass den Titel auch verdient.
Schade fand ich, dass viele der Geschichten, insbesondere über die Göttinnen und menschlichen Frauen, sehr fokussiert auf Männer waren statt auf die weiblichen Personen, um die es eigentlich ging, und dass die Frauen leider meistens als Verliererinnen aus den Geschichten herausgingen. Somit hinterlässt das Buch, während es informativ ist, doch einen schalen Nachgeschmack und ein wenig Hoffnungslosigkeit, anstatt aufbauend zu sein, wie ich vor dem Lesen gehofft hatte.
Alles in allem ist Sagenhafte Frauen jedoch ein sehr breit gefächertes und Informatives Buch, das auch für junge Leser*innen (ab ca. der vierten Klasse) und zum Vorlesen geeignet ist.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. What I liked was the sheer volume of goddesses/heroines named. If nothing else, it’s a good jumping off point for looking into lesser known characters. The illustrations were pretty cool also.
What I didn’t care for was how few stories were included (compared to how many goddesses and heroines were named, and how the stories that were there were often the easiest to find and best known. I get why that is, there’s a good chance this is someone’s first book of myths; but it’s hard to see all the little blurbs of all these “new” characters, and then so many of the same old stories one might find from the most basic search of myths. My last complaint was that a few of the stories were different from other versions I know, and I didn’t prefer the version in this book. I get that the book is aimed at younger kids and some things get spicy or violent, and that there are myriad versions of any given myth in general, depending on how old they are or who’s telling the story. I just didn’t care for these versions in most cases, a simple matter of personal preference.

[Abi Jean]

Beautiful illustrations and a comprehensive collection of legendary women. I especially loved the diversity in this. I chose not to rate it, however, because I had a hard time reading these. Most of the stories have misogynistic themes. That is not the fault of the author, a historian, but I do wish there had been some discussion of the stories and how they may be or have been harmful. I understand the idea of the author is to insight these conversations among readers and to report rather than preach, but considering this is a children's book, I would have preferred she either spell it out or have just not included the stories with misogynistic or sexist themes. Rather than feeling as though women are being celebrated in this, it just made me sad that women has suffered so throughout history. Unfortunately, even as a feminist, this was my least favorite of the collection, so far.

[Kyo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as audiobook and it just doesn't really work as such. There are so many names and different characters, so it is really difficult to keep track of the people (especially because each 'chapter' begins with a list of goddesses/heroines related to something with a little description of each and after that list we get some stories of them, but at that point I had already forgotten the listed details of the various goddesses/heroines! I think the physical editions (especially the illustrated one) might work much better, because it allows you to flip through the pages (and I also think it works really well as a book to just pick up here and there instead of reading it cover to cover)

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will caveat by saying that I listened to the audiobook and probably missed out on supplementing the stories with the beautiful artwork.

I love fairytales, mythology, and stories about strong women, so this book scratched so many itches. The grouping by type rather than nationality or culture of origin provided a very interesting cross-cultural lens. It allowed me to see the similarities and differences in mythology across the world. This is a great encyclopedic style of storytelling, but I would not recommend it if you are looking to build a deep understanding of any single myth or goddess.

[DeAnne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every book in this series, especially those written by Jean, get better and better. I love the formatting and the way the rich illustrations goes along with not only the pages that are more snippets of information, but also the illustrations that accompany the stories. The information is vibrant, interesting and easily consumable. I really enjoyed that there was a good variety of cultures and mythologies represented, it truly felt like little glimpses of cultures all over the world. I really hope that there are more books to come in this series, as I've enjoyed every one so far.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 2nd book I've read from this author/illustrator pair and I love it. While it's is sort of a primer aimed at middle grade audience, I firmly believe people of all ages can enjoy it.
Author Jean Menzies (who I've followed on YouTube for a few years) skillfully distills stories from mythology/folklore/religions around the world to create this "primer" and artist Katie Ponder beautifully illustrates it all.
I definitely recommend picking this up if you have any interest in mythology or folklore...also makes a great "coffee table" book.

[Olivia-Savannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This way good! A solid informative read with a variety of goddesses, heroines and other female mythological creatures from all around the world. I liked how intersectional and diverse it was.

I really liked the geometric feeling illustrations. Once again, such a good addition to non-fiction for children.

I did sometimes feel like the stories were a bit simplified. Otherwise enjoyed this a lot!

[KKuehl · Rating 1 out of 5]

My review is of the audiobook. I suspect that the paper version of this book Is infinitely better. I just did not like the narration. I hate to say it, but the narrator's voice in general was just irritating to me. But what I absolutely could not tolerate was how she would change your voice to read to me like I was a 5-year-old.

[Jenn Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
A really delightful book, just like earlier ones about God and Goddesses from different cultures. Separated into sections based on the type of goddess or legendary feature - covers many different cultures and parts of the world. Wonderful illustrations

[Meagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of goddesses and heroines from different myths and legends from cultures around the world is wonderfully told by Jean Menzies and gorgeously illustrated by Katie Ponder. I wish I could hang some of the art on my walls!

[Rebecca Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully illustrated treasury of stories. An ideal gift book for a young reader... this is the kind of book that can be taken off the shelf and read one story per night, or lovingly poured over for hours at a time. Wonderful book and enchanting stories.

[Artemis Cienfuegos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book really was needed for me to look at womanhood in a positive manner after having a difficult time the last year. I love this book and would recommend anyone looking for cool, myths and legends.

[Ashley Holbert]

This was a cute, informational book on a variety of goddesses and other important legendary figures throughout time and cultures. Bite-size information was informative yet entertaining.

[Susï Schmölz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro hermoso, muy entretenido e informativo para las jóvenes que quieren aprender sobre las diosas y las heroínas. Lo leí con mis hijas y les gustó mucho, muy recomendado.

[Fay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good, basic introduction for people who don't know a lot about Mythology.
I enjoyed that it encompassed all different Myths and branched out throughout the book.

[outtathyme · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting but could've used more actual myths rather than the summary of the Goddesses/Heroines.