Don’t you love to hear and read empowerment stories, especially about strong, beautiful women? If your little god or goddess does, too, then The Lady of Ten Thousand Names is just right. This introduction into the legendary realm of the goddess is a wonderful way to encourage our daughters and sons to embody their personal power. From China to North America and from Japan to Africa, stories have been passed down for centuries, one generation to another. Many of these are tales of powerful and mysterious goddesses that teach important life lessons still applicable today. The Lady of Ten Thousand Names is a delightful smorgasbord of these stories, presenting a wide range of times and cultures that will capture the imagination of adults and children alike.
Author Burleigh Muten lucidly retells these traditional stories of bold women who risked it all to serve humanity with kindness, care and compassion. Egypt’s Isis, the North American Lakota Sioux’s White Buffalo Woman and Nigeria’s Oshun are perfect models for female readers, given the current popularity of princesses in today’s literature. But the stories in The Lady of Ten Thousand Names are timeless enough to give all young readers encouragement to reach for their dreams.
Beautiful watercolor illustrations by Helen Cann grace the pages and bring the situations and characters to life. As an added touch, she uses different borders that tie in with each different culture. The Chinese tale of Kuan Yin is filled with soft lotus blossoms. The Greek story of Persephone, Demeter and Hekate contains a border of bright pomegranates and daffodils. Most impressive are the stories of Ama-terasu from Japan, Freya from Scandinavia and Cerridwen from Wales, where Cann successfully uses the illustrations to pull the reader into the world of the goddesses.
The talented combination of Muten, the author of Grandmothers’ Stories: Wise Woman Tales from Many Cultures, along with Cann whose work has been exhibited around the world, is a sure combination of mastery.
Karen Van Valkenburg is a book publicist by day and a goddess (at least in her own mind) by night.
