‘Finding Baba Yaga’ Is a Short Verse Tale Perfect for Halloween

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Janet Yolen has turned her sights to Slavic fairy tales with the new short verse book Finding Baba Yaga. A young girl runs away from a difficult home life to find herself working for, and learning from Baba Yaga. For those not familiar with the tale of Baba Yaga, she is a creature that looks like a fearsome old woman. She has metal teeth, a fence made of bones, flies through the air in a mortar and pestle, and has a house on chicken legs. She also enslaves young women and eats young men.

Yolen herself has said that this book is influenced in part by the popular column from the Hairpin and Taisia Kitaiskaia’s ‘Ask Baba Yaga’ column, which provides young women with advice in the tone of the famous Slavic entity.  The writing of Finding Baba Yaga in verse makes for a more lyrical tale that flows quickly. I read this book in 30 minutes and loved every minute of it.

Finding Baba Yaga is available from Tor Publishing on October 30th.

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