In Which Girls Save the Day
Plain Jane and the Mermaid by Vera Brosgol (First Second, 2024)
Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest by Isabel Greenberg (Harry N. Abrams, 2024)
Reviewed by Cecelia Larsen
Stories have power – and stories for young people especially so. The stories we tell to and for children, or teach as canon in educational settings, inevitably form a sort of bedrock on which they build their understanding of life. It is also true that hero stories, the ones retold and reworked to show what sort of person society venerates, have been primarily about men and boys-becoming-men for thousands of years. Of course, this is not new news. Much of the work of the young adult genre over the past four decades has been a deconstruction of this paradigm, and spunky girls have found their way to hero status in books large and small. Two graphic novels published for young people this spring feature quests that not only center heroines but have interesting things to say about society’s mores and morals. Plain Jane and the Mermaid by Vera Brosgol, and Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest by Isabel Greenberg are by no means the first graphic novels to focus on girls’ heroic (and magical!) quests, but both books engage with the genre in ways that entertain, inform, and poke sly fun at historic gender norms and the ways in which we talk about coming of age, worthiness, and love.
Vera Brosgol (author-illustrator of graphic novel Be Prepared, an autobiographical take on Russian summer camp that is alternately hilarious and affecting) has created a jewel-box of a middle grade fantasy in Plain Jane and the Mermaid. With gorgeous art and design inside and out, polished to full-color perfection, this quest story is delightfully ironic: it is both beautiful and good, in contrast to its message--beauty does not equal goodness. That lesson is a challenge to our society’s story and the vaguely historical setting of the book. The loveliness of the bookwill increase its readership while the entertaining and heartwarming story within works its magic two-fold: to pick apart young peoples’ understanding of what makes someone a hero (hint: it is not that they are beautiful, thin, or born to the right parents!), and to break down the constant peer comparison and negative self-talk that can be overwhelming in the preteen and teenage years.
Protagonist Jane is, as the title suggests, plain, and this is the source of several troubles. Her family didn’t love her for herself, made no provisions for her future, and have died just before the story opens. Due to the terms of their will, in a week Jane must cede her home to a male cousin unless she can find someone to marry her – a seemingly impossible task. Add to this her loneliness and cripplingly low self-esteem, and you have a recipe for a story, if not a quest. Start at the bottom, and then work your way up, right? Then Peter, the fisherman’s beautiful son—after an awkward conversation-slash-proposal from Jane (he does not want to be a fisherman, she has admired him from afar, and they agree to make do)—is stolen by a beautiful mermaid before they can solve Jane’s problems. The town’s wisewoman (who runs a shop called the “Cronery”) then offers help – well, that’s a recognizable step of the hero’s journey! Quest now in business, Jane musters her courage to go rescue someone she thinks she loves – and the first hints of selflessness, bravery and persistence that mark her internal virtue shine through. The unfolding of the rest of the story is a cinematic fairy tale romp, (complete with monsters!), and very satisfying, funny, and poignant by turns.
One of the most obvious visual parallels in the story is between plain, plump Jane and Loreley, the lovely mermaid. In the opening pages of the book, they each see themselves separately in mirrors, and later, in a pivotal scene, they together face mirrors and themselves at again – to much different effect. While Lorely tells Peter on that “My mother always told us beauty is all you need because you can get anything else you want,” Jane has learned similar lessons from a different standpoint, and her eventual dismantling of those rules for beauty and the resulting consequence is her biggest triumph (133). She later declaims:
“I shouldn’t have to get married, just to be able to survive. Who decided that? What’s valuable, who’s valuable… It doesn’t make any sense if you stop and think about it… but you’re not supposed to think, you’re just supposed to believe it! Someone somewhere made up all these stupid rules…and we’re all just going along with them! Even if it makes us miserable! Well, I don’t want to be miserable. I’m sorry. Actually, no I’m not.” (335)
Isabel Greenberg’s Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest is packed with familiar legends of Camelot: the origin of Excalibur and the Lady in the Lake, the chicanery of Morgan Le Fay, and Lancelot’s lack of self-control, among others. In this retelling, narrated by Young Hag fifty years after the events of the Round Table, none of the main characters are interested in marriage, but the society around them is. As in Plain Jane, the women in Young Hag’s time have limited options: to marry, to go to a convent, or a secret third option: to learn magic. Young Hag, her mother Nearly Wizened One, and her grandmother Ancient Crone have each devoted their lives to magic as last three witches in Britain. Witchery is precarious, and the characters must weigh whether their search for a way between worlds is worth the risk of venturing into strange villages, where they stand out because they do not conform to society’s expectations.
Two more important threads run through Plain Jane and the Mermaid that link it to Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest in interesting ways. The first is the power of self-talk, both for good and ill. Jane calls herself horrible, ugly, selfish, and a coward in dialogue with another character. While it is clear this self-portrait is rooted in ideas passed on by her family and community, she has internalized these messages and believes for much of the book that she does not truly deserve a happy ending. In contrast, Young Hag in Greenberg’s updated Arthurian legend revels in her name, as it indicates her connection to the magic and history of Britain. In Young Hag’s case, taking on witchy duties is not only family tradition, but a way to place herself in the story of the world, however much it may shift around her. While Jane eventually does the internal work of untangling her sense of self from society’s claims that beauty equals goodness and gains confidence and authority as a result, Young Hag instead suffers external conflict that shakes her faith before reaffirming it and her sense of purpose.
A final correlation between Plain Jane and Young Hag is a warning to be suspicious of peoples’ motivations, even (and especially) when they help you, and to be aware of the consequences or cost of that help. In Brosgol’s story this message manifests as skepticism by some characters and adds a note of maturity and depth to Jane’s otherwise fairly innocent and upfront story (never mind the sinister villain bits – they’ll delight younger readers rather than ring warning bells). In Greenberg’s offbeat and marvelous take on Knights of the Round Table mythology, the exchange of knowledge, oaths, and wisdom for assistance is at times violent, violating, and always governed by rules of balance and magic. It is a more grown-up story – intended for the 14- to 18-year-old set, whereas Brosgol’s book is marketed for 10- to 14-year-olds – and it does not shy away from the mercilessness of the source material, where a thin film of chivalry often served to smooth over barbarous acts.
Greenberg’s work is at once more mystical – helped along by literal mists of Avalon, goblin markets, and Merlin within its pages – and obviously a story about women, directed by women. The book opens with narrator Young Hag’s induction into womanhood and magic, which involves a naming ceremony, blood sacrifice, drinking spirits, and being sick in the bushes afterwards. Greenberg soon begins playing with form, telling Camelot’s stories within the story: of Uther and the rape of Igraine, Merlin and Nimue’s machinations, and siblings Morgan Le Fay and Arthur, among others. The running commentary on who gets to hold power and the strength of women in a deeply unfair society is juxtaposed with Young Hag’s exploration of a world that has seemingly lost its magic. To put things right, she and her grandmother Ancient Crone will have to complete several quests and reclaim their agency. This is never clearer than in bard Taliesin’s exchange with Young Hag:
“[Taliesin] In every good story, the protagonist (that would be you) must hit rock bottom before they can strive for their happy ending. The hero’s quest. And you are smack bang in the middle of the dark night of the soul.
[Young Hag] I have no idea what you’re talking about.
[Taliesin] Stories, of course. You are living one. And one day, I shall tell it.” (203)
The story-within-a-story conceit dovetails with the way in which Greenberg regularly breaks the world of book by using the comic’s gutters (the white space between panels) to add more text – sometimes in the Young Hag’s internal voice and sometimes general narration. Humorous bits of sass and snark come through as well to break the tension of dark times.
Overall, Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest is a more literary reading experience – it does not attempt the cinematic polish of Plain Jane – and Greenberg works with a limited color palette of sunset hues, stylized art with few fine details, and simple, flattened figures. In Greenberg’s panels the setting has more depth, detail, and movement than the characters, which is a nice analogue for the claim that the magic was (in) the land all along. Symbolic swords, towers, fires, cats, and more make for an allusion-rich reading and rereading experience. Secondary character Sir Britomart will be a favorite – she broke gender norms simply by growing too tall and being an overachiever, and then further breaks them by falling in love with a gentlelady.
Heroic quests are one way of telling coming of age stories, but their resolution is not The End. In Young Hag’s story, Greenberg is sure to hammer home that point. Ancient Crone says, “You find out what you like and who you are. That’s what coming of age is all about.” Young Hag replies, “I thought I already came of age.” Ancient Crone answers, “Of course not! It takes a whole life to come of age!” (260) The afterlife of the story, or, in other words, Young Hag’s future of learning and growing and achieving new goals, is a model for young girls and young people in general. Jane’s progression from self-hating to confident heroine is another. And perhaps for both protagonists and books, the motto could be summed up as: society, history, and stories will lie to you about what is important, but you can find your way if you focus on your inner strength. And that is always a lesson worth sharing with any young (or not so young) reader.
Cecelia Larsen is an educator, book blogger, and frequent Cybils award judge based in Arlington, Virginia. She enjoys trivia, travel, and baking, and can be found online at @ceceliareads on Instagram.
