This book has and is changing me. Crowned: Magical Folk and Fairy Tales from the Diaspora. Buy it now! It not only reimagines the fairytales that we all grew up with by rewriting Snow White to give us The Poisoned Apple. Changing Cinderella into Asha, the Little Cinder Girl and gives us new versions of The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, and the Red Riding Hood. All of these stories have people who look like the kids in the neighborhood that I grew up in, who look like me as a young girl, who look like my babies. But they didn’t stop there y’all, they included new version of Anasi, and Aku, The Sun Maker, and John Henry. They even reclaimed our cowboys and gave our skate board girl a voice.
This all matters so much to me, especially after the journey I have been on that is having me reexamination my stories about worth. This is bringing me back home to myself in a way that I didn’t know I needed. It is healing me and making me stronger.
It is reminding me of the book Crowns that came out in 2000 that highlighted the church ladies in their hats (their crowns). The book starts off with a quote from James Baldwin “Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it”
Buy this book. It doesn’t matter what race you are because these stories are all of ours. This book helps to create more balance for all of us.
Quanita