The Girl Who Went to the Underworld and The Girl Who Loved Food

This is one of a set of four books based on retellings of folk tales and myths from around the world which star 'girls with attitude'. The girl who went to the underworld is Anansi's daughter, who makes the descent as part of her quest to save her family from famine. In the course of the trials she undergoes in the underworld, she meets talking potatoes and a lady who eats through her nose and ears, but she endures and comes home with a banquet-breeding drum.

Gretel is the girl who loved food, a proud and devious cook who delights in treating herself to her rich master's wine and food when he is not looking. She goes too far one day when she devours both of the chickens that she has been cooking for her master and his special guest, licking the last bone clean just as they are coming through the door. Her stratagem for escaping the consequence of her own gluttony is reprehensible, but hilarious.

Here we have two well told tales, brief but action packed, featuring a pair of truly gutsy heroines. The eventfulness, slight nastiness, and well orchestrated tension should go down well with both girls and boys, even though blokes are made fools of in both stories.