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THE DARK WAY by Virginia Hamilton

THE DARK WAY

Stories from the Spirit World

adapted by Virginia Hamilton

Pub Date: Jan. 1st, 1990
ISBN: 0-15-284215-2
Publisher: Harcourt

A collection of 24 myths and folk tales from a wide variety of traditions, plus one original story incorporating folk beliefs. A succession of magic creatures—some as familiar as Baba Yaga or the Golem, some as seldom-met in children's books as the Flying Dutchman or Fenris—rise from the dark place "between thought and unthinking" to change, menace, trick, or be tricked. Hamilton sometimes combines incidents from different versions; her clear, easy prose gives the whole collection a unity of voice, only occasionally broken by touches of dialect, but, unfortunately, the didacticism here is obtrusive: names are split for ease of pronunciation ("Me-du-sa"), while appended notes provide unsystematic snippets of background and pointless recaps of plot or theme ("This legend. . .has a double transformation motif within the beauty-and-the-beast theme. The prince becomes a boar, and the princess becomes a frog"). Though the bibliography is large, most of its entries are uncommon in children's collections. Advise pleasure-readers to skip the notes, and researchers to consult better-documented material.