Mother and Son Tales

Christine Linge MacDonald is a past director of the Toronto & District
Parent Co-operative Preschool Corporation, a freelance writer, and a
bookseller specializing in children’s literature.

Josephine Evetts-Secker is a Jungian analyst who taught English
literature at the University of Calgary for many years. In focusing her
two specialties on traditional tales from around the world, she has
created a delicious hybrid volume with appeal for readers of all ages.

Father and Son Tales explores the “love and expectations that form
and complicate father–son relationships.” Mother and Son Tales looks
at many types of mothers—from widows to goddesses, from gentle and
aggressive—who are all struggling with the age-old conflict: a mother
wants to protect her son yet knows that he must meet his challenges in
order to grow.

In the volumes, Evetts-Secker has taken pains to move beyond the
Eurocentric focus of many fairy-tale books, bringing us stories from
Egypt, Chile, Polynesia, and other points of the globe. Her voice is
that of a traditional oral storyteller: slightly formal and stately, yet
flowing and practised. The reader encounters a bewildering array of
magical realms and charms, which the author does not attempt to explain.
The result is a pleasant sense of wonder at the capriciousness of nature
and chance, and a feeling that the universe conspires to promote
justice.

Richly illustrated by Helen Cann, each page features ethnically diverse
border illustrations. Cann’s renderings of the various folk heroes
from around the world shows attention to authenticity and a sensitivity
to the focal points of the stories. These volumes are highly
recommended.