Cover Image: Adventure Stories for Daring Girls

Adventure Stories for Daring Girls

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Member Reviews

This book has beautiful illustrations. Just like most anthologies there were some stories I liked and some I didn’t. Overall though I would recommend for young girls.

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This book was full of such wonderful stories! I appreciated how unique each one was- familiar tales had some sort of twist, and many of them were new to me. Definitely a great read for someone with kids.

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

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I read this at bedtime with my KS2 aged daughter. We loved the stories and it was such a breath of fresh air. After reading the book my daughter said that she found the characters inspiring and would continue to be brave and daring herself.

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First of all, all the illustrations are really beautiful. Second, I really liked the diverse stories. Third, I liked the feminist/girl power twist in almost all of them. They are really good to let young girls know that they should aspire to be wise and strong and selfless and kind.

I have read most of these stories before from around the world. Whilst I liked some, others I wasn't too impressed with. The ones that I have read before and I have seen movies about didn't impress me at all because I didn't feel the magic that the original stories had.

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Thanks to NetGalley and Arcturus Publishing for the digital review copy of this book.

This cute book contains fifteen beautifully illustrated retellings of classic stories for adventurous girls. From the summary: “Meet Dorothy Gale, who freed faraway Oz from a terrible tyrant; Hua Mulan, who became a mighty warrior, legendary throughout ancient China; clever and powerful goddess Athena of Greek myth, who went toe-to-toe with Poseidon; and many more.”

I loved that these stories featured strong girls who don’t need boys to help them. They don’t let the boys have all the adventures; they strike out on their own to make their own way. These are great bedtime stories, or anytime stories, really, if your little girl is looking for fun and you want to instill a sense of adventure into her spirit.

Here are the stories:

• Gerda and the Snow Queen (Denmark)
• Hua Mulan (China)
• Heidi (Switzerland)
• Alice in Wonderland (UK)
• Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz (USA)
• Athena and Poseidon’s Contest for Athens (Greece)
• Hinemoa and Tutanekai (Maori, NZ)

This book is part of the Inspiring Heroines series. This series brings together girls who smash stereotypes and gender roles, and I can’t wait to see more.

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This is such a beautiful collection of stories that are a perfect way to introduce young girls (and boys) to figures from history, myth, legend and stories of their own.
This book tells these tales in short format, making them easily digestible and easy to understand for smaller children. These classic tales have also been updated to include clear morals and consequences so they’re perfect teaching tools as well. I found them simple and quick to read, perfect for a bed time story!
I thought that every illustration was beautiful and complemented each tale wonderfully.
I’d highly recommend this book to anyone with a small child who loves a bit of adventure!

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Adventure Stories for Daring Young Girls is a beautiful anthology of retold stories for children by author Samantha Newman. A bit of classics, literature, fairy tales and myths. We get the main through line of stories featuring Heidi and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

I read this to my seven year old at bed time and we both loved the stories. Each installment is the perfect length for before bed read a loud time. We also loved looking at the beautiful illustrations by Khoa Lee. I will say that sometimes my daughter lost interest in the stories she already knew. But she enjoyed newer (to her) stories like the Ice Queen or seeing how Mulan mixes and matches with Disney’s version.

While these stories are marketed for girls, I think boys would also appreciate these strong and brave young women. Highly recommended this anthology to introduce young readers to classic literature. My age suggestion is 4-6.

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I enjoyed this story collection a lot. Granted, the stories have been altered a bit, and pared down some, but they all retain a spirit of independence and adventure, with smart, determined heroines. Also, I much prefer the ending for "The Little Mermaid" given here, it's very satisfying! I appreciated the diversity of the tales; some are familiar, but there are quite a few new (or new to me, at least) ones included. The art work is just lovely, and the illustrations have a manuscript feel to them, as if the reader had found an antique book hidden away somewhere. A beautiful addition to any reader's collection.

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I received a copy of this book to review from Netgalley. Thank you for the opportunity.
I found this book to be a sweet and lovely collection of stories of daring girls from a range of backgrounds. It would make a welcome addition to any young child's bookshelf. The pictures are wonderful and well done. The stories are reasonably well written, at times a bit overly simplistic which made the reader loose interest in the story. However, this may be more suitable for the younger readers.
On the whole, a good read.

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I loved this compilation!

It was very easy and I read a few stories each night and loved picking it back up and reading the next one. There were a few stories I knew before but also some that were new to me. I love books like this that show how to be more independent, think about problems, give things a go and push the boundaries that should have been removed long ago.

It is 5 stars from me for this one – really enjoyable – very highly recommended!

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A truly excellent book! We are trying to raise our daughter to ignore the pressures of society, to be a certain type of ‘girl.’ This book is one that finally tells stories, labelled for girls, that aren’t covered in pink, frills and princesses waiting to be saved. We absolutely loved it and cannot wait to continue reading it to our daughter.

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This collection includes sixteen stories in all. Some feature characters that may be familiar including Heidi (of the Alps), Alice (of Wonderland),and Dorothy (of Oz). Other featured heroines may be less well known but all have interesting lives in these tales that can be read in any order.

The editor invites girls in as she suggests that they grab snacks, find a comfortable spot and become friends with the girls in these stories. Girls can then go on to enjoy the truly, beautifully illustrated tales that follow. All are adapted from well known classics. Readers can look for longer versions of those that are their favorites.

This book provides a chance to enjoy the wonders of escaping through literature. Share it with a girl you know…either read together or give it to her to enjoy on her own.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.

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What a delight! A charming read full of fifteen bite-sized chapters, each with a daring, clever heroine from a diverse collection of cultures and time periods. Some of these heroines were friendly faces from childhood, like Heidi and Alice, but these retellings added dimension to the familiar stories and made old friends new. Some stories I wasn’t familiar with, like “Hinemoa’s Great Swim,” a traditional Māori story, and “Chimidyue and the Butterfly,” a Ticuna tale from South America, which I found refreshing and enlightening.

Each story is beautifully illustrated with works by Khoa Le, which just adds to the magic of it all. I wish I had had this book when I was younger and I can’t wait to share it with my little nieces!

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I was so excited when I saw this book pop up on Netgalley. I have a lot of friends with young children, so I'm always on the look out for books that would make great presents. I had high hopes.

When I saw I'd been approved, I couldn't wait to download the book and get started. Sadly I was to be disappointed. I found the stories to be over simplified. Yes, it tells the story, but they've been condensed so much that they lose all the magic of the fairy tale! I imagine this is what it's like to read the cliff notes on a novel.

Most children's books and stories have a lesson behind them, reducing each story to three to four pages feels like it loses the meaning of these tales.

I liked the illustrations and I appreciate what the author is trying for with the book but sadly it's just not for me.

**Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for giving me advanced access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

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I absolutely love fairytales. You got a fairytale to tell? Oh boy, I will be sitting there with a blankie, ready to hear a tale of romance, adventure, far out worlds. You name it, and I am there!

Although fairytales are an obsession of mine, I must admit I have not read any (except maybe Cinderella and maybe Heidi, but Cinderella wasn’t in this book) in their original form. I can’t help it. I’ll have Disney movies on repeat. My bad. So this book is my first dive into original fairytales, albeit abridged (super abridged).

The brave female protagonists ranged from Hua Mulan to Heidi to Princess Kaguya (which I’ve honestly ever heard mentioned in the Sailor Moon Hearts on Ice film. I know, terrible)

It’s hard to rate this because I don’t know the entire stories of these characters to judge how good or bad these young adult renditions are. And we all know that Disney adjusts to fit a family audience.

One of my favorites had to be the story of Mulan. Not only was it vastly different than the version I knew, I was kind of bothered afterwards that another female soldier wasn’t included in the Disney version because that was pretty wicked. Apparently another woman dresses up as a man, is an expert swordsman (swordswoman?) in the army and trains Mulan to be the badass she is. Does anyone know if that is in the “original” tale of Hua Mulan? I am quite curious to know. I went ahead and googled it, but I couldn’t find anything about it.

Adventure Stories for Daring Girls is perfect if you’re looking for short stories to read to your children right before bed. Heck, it’s nice to read it yourself. You’re a child at heart, right? There may also be characters in these stories that, like me, you’ve never heard of before. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll wanna do some more research and learn about their history.

Who knows?

And if you do, stop back on by and let me know! I might have to add some new fairytales on my favorites list. :)


Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this review copy!

Until next time, my friends.

Cheers

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<u>Adventure Stories for Daring Girls</u>takes classic works of literature, fables, and even myths about strong young women, and compiles them into a middle grade friendly book. This is perfect for updating your 300s collection and has a great variety of stories with strong heroines. The colorful illustrations also lend to the shortened stories collected from a diverse range of works. Some of these stories I had never heard of before, and some I was already quite familiar with.

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It is collection of fairy tales about brave girls. Stories are sorted from around the world and are adapted to depict bravery of brave female protagonist.
Stories which are adapted are Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy, Heidi but I like story of athena the most. Stories are accompanied with excellent eye catching illustrations.
It is a collection of inspiring tales from folk tales from around the world.
I liked illustrations very much. Story are deliberately forshortened to suit young readers.
A highly recommend read.

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My ten year old daughter loved this book. She read it cover-to-cover in an afternoon. She's enjoyed other similar books with collections of inspirational stories and this was just as good. There is a nice selection of different stories so there should be something for everyone.

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Adventure Stories for Daring Girls is a wonderful collection of folk tales and adapted versions of well known stories featuring feisty heroines who aren’t afraid to seek out an adventure.

I enjoyed the short versions of the well known stories, including The Snow Queen and Alice in Wonderland and thought they were a good oversight/introduction to the main versions of these tales. It was also great that at the beginning of the stories, the original title and author were provided to signpost young readers if they wanted to dig deeper.

The traditional tales were varied too, incorporating diversity, with heroines from Brazil to Russia. In our multi-cultural world, this can only be a good thing! I love reading folk and fairy tales from around the world, it gives a good insight into other ways of life and I felt this was well covered in this collection.

The illustrations are beautiful and really set the book off. All in all, a brilliant book for youngsters who love an adventure.

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