Magic and monstrous mothers in Kelly Barnhill's The girl who drank the moon and Heather Fawcett's The grace of wild things

Witches, evil queens, and wicked stepmothers haunt the pages of children’s literature, these monstrous women poised and ready to poison, punish, or bake maidens in ovens. Between dead mothers, evil stepmothers, and the occasional mute grandmother, the woman who mothers is either a negative figure or an invisible one, time either curdling her into something wicked or erasing her entirely. In this hybrid thesis, I aim to assert that this vilification of older women not only represents deeply rooted fears of women’s bodies, but of women’s experiences of time as well. In my academic paper, I reflect on the connection between magic and maternity in the two middle-grade fairy tale retellings, "The Grace of Wild Things" by Heather Fawcett and "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill, analyzing how both novels use witchcraft to critique the widely accepted narratives of monstrous mothers found in traditional fairy tales. In the excerpt of my young adult fairy tale retelling, The Bear King, I retell the Norwegian fairy tale “East of the Sun, and West of the Moon”, exploring how the intersection of female monstrosity and female subjection is most prevalent in fairy tales which utilize the animal bridegroom motif, where a marriage between a human and animal takes place. Despite all the stifling morals, harsh punishments, and unrealistic expectations for both old and young women, fairy tales remain a staple in children’s literature, both in their original forms as well as in their retellings. And there, hidden under centuries of dark forests and muttered between evil spells, those monstrous women wait: “We are still here,” they seem to say. “Are you ready to listen?” With this thesis, I hope to answer their question with a loud and defiant yes.