The feeling is one of Disney has a love child with Anime. This is not intended to be negative criticism. There is abundant use of bright colors, and during the retellings of the Russian folklore, there is almost a cartoonish feel. The illustrations to this graphic novel seemed to be designed to appear to children. This is made clear with Masha’s memories of her grandmother, a more prominent figure than her mother, a character who makes her presence felt though her absence. It is more about the connection between mothers and daughters than anything else. Masaha’s encounters with Baba Yaga are drawn from Russian folklore and there are brief retellings of a few traditional Baba Yaga tales, but the emphasis is on a modern girl trying to, not so much find her place, but as trying to discover who she is, or to get back to who is. It is because the story does not follow the standard trope and plot of meddling two families that it stands out. This aspect of the story will no doubt anger some parents, but while a more concrete view of her father’s feelings one way or another would have been nice, it also sounds somewhat false to the story itself. The protagonist is Masha, a young woman whose widowed father is remarrying and who seems to be more warm and fuzzy towards his new family in the offering than his own daughter. This Baba Yaga tale focuses mostly on that aspect of the witch, though to call her warm and fuzzy would be incorrect. Even when comparing her cannibalistic urges to the witch from “Hansel and Gretel”, Baba Yaga seems less bloodthirsty, and more testing. She is, to a degree I mean she has a taste for young flesh, but there is something about her that defies easy classification. All that said, to call her evil isn’t quite right. She is old, ugly, tough as nails in boots, and doesn’t take crap from anyone. If it, then she is tied with the White Queen from Narnia. I can see a sequel to this book being quite good.īaba Yaga is perhaps the most famous witch outside of Oz. It's nice to be reminded that a novel doesn't have to be perfect in any way in order to offer a very worthwhile experience.

It's a book in which a heroine is struggling at home, for good reason, and goes off on a sort of epic quest. Somehow the registers seem a bit mixed and not fully formed, but that's okay, too. I am talking about the ending, which I won't go into here, but I will say, I really appreciated. The reason I am giving it four stars (oh rating systems, how ambivalent I feel when you are near) is because it does something that I rarely find other books doing. And that it values the resourcefulness of the protagonist and presents Baba Yaga as a delightfully complex character.

I love, though, that it is trying to bring folklore into the present moment. This book is fairly clunky and puppy-ish (awkward? almost feels like an early draft of something) and for at least the first half, doesn't quite come together.

Baba Yaga's Assistant by Marika McCoola