Cover Image: Tamamo the Fox Maiden and Other Asian Stories

Tamamo the Fox Maiden and Other Asian Stories

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Member Reviews

This book is beautiful, with wonderful and humorous stories, but I have one issue. In a book of Asian folktales, I would have liked to see a great proportion of the stories written and drawn by Asian authors and artists. It seems like a pretty big drawback and an opportunity missed for the publisher.

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"Tamamo the Fox Maiden" is a fun Young Adult graphic novel. I'll definitely be recommending this one to some of our younger patrons.

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Beautifully diverse and dynamic, this collection is packed full of lesser-known myths and legends from Tibet, India, Indonesia, and beyond, each told by a different author and illustrator. Some richly traditional, others with a contemporary twist, these 21 stories have been creatively revitalised through a new, fresh lens perfect for middle grade children.

Easy to understand and unexpectedly funny, readers will get lost in worlds of vengeful spirits, flying ogres, helpful teapots, ghost pepper ghosts, and trickster tigers whilst learning some important messages along the way.

I eagerly raced through each story and then immediately re-read the collection again, this time fully admiring the beautifully intricate and unique black and white illustrations. I'll definitely be reading The Girl Who Married a Skull and Other African Stories and all the other books to come from this brilliant series!

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As a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of lesser known Asian folk tales, but some of the stories ended too abruptly for my liking. I absolutely loved that they used different authors and illustrators for each story, but a few needed a little more context to make them feel complete. Overall, the majority of the stories to be very entertaining, cute, and funny. I would highly recommend, if you are just looking for a light, fast-paced read!

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The images and text unfortunately did not come through in this download. I am more than happy to review a hard copy of this book.

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I do love fables and folktales and whatnot, so of course I wanted to try this! Especially I was interested in the fact that these are Asian stories and those not so familiar one (although some were). The comic consists of different tales by different comic book makers, which was nice. Gladly the stories were in harmony with each other and similar in a good way. Otherwise this would've been a mess perhaps. My only complaint is that I would've wanted to know more about the original tales, their background and whether these stories differ from them and how. Some kind of a list would've been great and info boxes too at the back. The world's big stories or so to say do seem similar and here you can find Noah in a sense and others too. It would be interesting to know where these known stories were born and why do they differ, though I know it's not easy and perhaps not relevant to the comic (who knows).

I wish Tamamo and the Fox Maiden and Other Asian Stories was in color, since black and white eats away some of the reading pleasure. The art work in itself works and looks nice and I'm glad it doesn't look like manga. The same with the lack of info boxes, it was hard to place the stories anywhere, since they tend to look generic in a way and perhaps slightly naive. Still, this is a great comic and a nice (although not too deep) dive into the world of Asian fables and folktales. I just wish this would've looked a little more Asian.

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This was absolutely hilarious and entertaining. I can't even say which one of the tales I enjoyed the most. They were all great and the different art styles fantastic. What would make this edition even better would be a full colored edition. I so wished this wouldn't only be in black and white!
I can recommend this to absolutely anybody.

Thank you so much Netgalley. What a treasure!

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!!!! I didn't know how much I needed this !!!

Beautiful, original stories and many of which I never heard of but desperately fell in love with.

I love folklore and tales and especially ones from other places. This made me feel full and happy and ughh I loved it. All of it. But again, especially the art. They were all different for each story too.

High recommend.

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* reviewed from uncorrected e-galley

diverse children's middlegrade graphic novel (Asian stories from various cultures retold by different graphic artists)
terrific collection of stories from a wide selection of Asian cultures, for grades 4th and up (they would entertain teens and adults, as well, but are PG). The only thing I was disappointed with was the western looks (long, light-colored hair) of the wife in "The Frog Skin" story, that seemed like an odd element of cultural white-washing that didn't need to be there. Other than that, I really enjoyed this high-quality compilation of diverse stories reimagined by different, acclaimed graphic novelists (some of them with Asian backgrounds) with different drawing and storytelling styles.

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'Tamamo the Fox Maiden and Other Asian Stories' edited by Kel McDonald is a treasury of stories told in graphic novel form.

In the 21 stories told from all regions of Asia, the stories have a series of magical animals, crafty gods, and enchanted objects. From a lucky teapot that is actually a disguised Tanuki to a story of the great flood. The real story (or one of them) of Mulan makes an appearance. One of my favorites was called 'Frog Skin' and it's a nice variant of 'The Frog Prince.'

I really had a lot of fun reading this collection of fables and stories. The art is pretty consistently good throughout. Sometimes with a collection like this there are stronger stories than others. Here they seem to be consistently good.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Iron Circus Comics, Letter Better Publishing Services, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

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I appreciate how this one finally gives some disclosure about the intended target audience! I had thought they were for around middle grade age but then some content would catch me and I'd second guess myself, so it was nice to know that these are indeed intended for that age group. In saying that, it can be enjoyed by all. Reading this volume in particular made me recall how much I enjoy fables with animals (although it has made me realise how much, not just these fables but ones across the world, there is this weird relationships with ghosts and or animals). Hopefully the modern take of these older stories will inspire an appreciation of animals amoung youngsters as well as teach them morals and enterain them.
Another thing I liked about this particular volume is that it just felt more put together and like the creators had a better, mroe direct idea of where they wanted these books to go in terms of entertainment, level of education (morals, understanding, etc) and the layout was really good (e.g.clear title that the story is adapted from.)

Also, interesting that the finished copy is in black and white, I feel like collections like this would really beenfit from at least a little colour, especially being aimed at a younger audience, I would feel it would engage them more, however I totally understand that with the ink the cost of the finish product would more than likely have to rise as it would be more expensive to produce.

The great flood story's art style sort of reminded me of Steven Universe. Urashima Taro was a confusing tale because I found it unfair that he ended up how he did because he was never told of the consequences of being down in the sea and for children, I believe they would pick this out and argue against it, as I did in my mind. However, I guess it teaches that life isn't fair. It is also interesting to see how the same tales are told differently in each culture. for e.g, I'm pretty sure in the african edition there was also a story about whether an animal (aligator) should eat the person who saved him, asking three beings for their judgement. The same tale was told here but with different living things. It's fascinating how the world is connected by fables etc
I didn't really understand Tamamo the fox maiden. I was hoping to get more out of it as Kitsunes really interest me, but I felt it was too condensed and we ended up missing a lot of info.

Overall, despite some of the tales being confusing, I think this was probably my favourite of the collections. I love the idea of presenting different fables from different cultures in a fun, graphic novel way, to hopefully engage that younger audience. This is a book I'd be happy to own myself!

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Eventhough I saw this anthology promoted as a middle-grade, I don't agree and I would recommend it to anyone who might be interested in folk tales from Eastern part of the world. Not only does this collection include obvious picks from Japan and China, it also introduces lesser known stories from India, Malaysia, Turkey, Arabia and even more. That was one of the things I loved about this anthology the most - the variety. Stories are only few pages short and every one of them has different art style and different authors. Some readers might find this confusing and not complex at all but I preffered it that way.

I am big fan of Eastern culture myself so I was really hyped about this book and I was happy when I get chance to review it. You get to meet wide variety of ghosts, spirtis and yokai - from tanuki, kitsune to different gods and goddesses. Some of the stories are worldwide known, such as Mulan or the Monkey King. Not every story ends with the happy ending and I'm glad it didn't, because generally speaking, Eastern folk and ghost tales might get very very scary, especially for us from Western part of the world.

I can nothing but recommend this sweet little collection. Eventhough I didn't enjoy all of the stories, most of them are remarkable and definetaly worth reading.

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Interesting mix of tales representing a number of Asian traditions. Some of the stories made sense without context, others appeared to be adaptations of stories that might have been more pleasing to someone with prior knowledge of the story. I'm not sure how I feel about an entire book of Asian folk tales being retold by primarily anglo artists, however.

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I'm afraid I wasn't wowed by this one. I did enjoy the various illustration styles. Some of the tales easy to follow and understand even if I'd never heard of the story before. Others left me baffled. It's a quick book to read. Perhaps if I'd read the other versions of the stories from other sources, they would have made sense but wasn't it the point of the book to introduce people to new stories without needed extra research about them?

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Tamamo the Fox Maiden is a superb anthology, featuring a variety of Asian folk tales, adapted into a comic format. I read the whole book in one sitting, and absolutely loved it. The stories themselves were easy to understand and enjoy, and left me clamouring for more - I love folklore, and having an easy-to-read comic version of so many stories was a real treat for me!! The art for each story is beautiful, and the variety of artistic styles was wonderful to see. I would definitely recommend this book!!

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An absolutely wonderful compilation of stories from Asian folklore!

My favorites are "Frog Skin" by Nilah Magruder, "Urashima Taro" by Jason Caffoe, "The Tiger, the Brahmin, and the Jackal" by Randy Milholland & Andrew Sides, "The History of the Spectre Ship" by Caitlyn Kurilich, "Gold Sister, Silver Sister, and Wood Sister" by Blue Delliquanti, and "Hoichi the Earless" by Nina Matsumoto.

Not only were the stories fantastic, but the art was also great! (I particularly enjoy Caitlyn Kurilich's art. I bought a beautiful print from her at LA Comic Con last year and I highly recommend checking out her other works on her social media.)

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Wow, just wow!
I read this collection of Asian folktales overnight, it was so captivating. They are mainly taken from Japan, China, Tibet, and India. Many of the stories will be familiar to readers who are fans of this type of material, Urashima Taro and Tamamo the Fox Maiden were ones I already knew and the others were ones I had heard of but didn't know the full story.

I adored the modern twist of Makora obsessing over tweets and using google maps to find his way up the Ganges river, Ghost Pepper was very sweet, I loved it. By far my favorite was Frog Skin - the ending has a perfect extra touch to it. And The Flying Ogre was short but succinct and beautifully illustrated. A powerful telling that was beautiful (albeit horrific) in just 8 pages.

The art used to illustrate each tale was stunning and fit the tone of each tale. It always seemed to perfectly capture the mood of the story, be that humor or horror. And there IS horror so if your not too keen on blood (even though it isn't always directly show) you might want to either skip those pages or look elsewhere. Like all fairy tales, many of them end with terrible results, however, just as many end on a happy note.

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