Ha, the Korean-born author/illustrator of the bestselling YA graphic novel Almost American Girl returns to the popular genre with a story rooted in the medieval-era folklore of the country she left at the age of 14. The Fox Maidens is based on the legend of Gumiho, a nine-tailed fox with magical powers and in many stories, a taste for revenge against those who have committed evil acts. That is the case with this feminist retelling, in which, Kai, a gifted young warrior, wants to study martial arts along with her brothers and the other boys and men in the kingdom. Her father is the ruler, having moved from the caste of administrators to the ruling caste because he defeated Gumiho in battle years earlier.
Yet Gumiho, a supernatural being, is never truly defeated. And Kai’s secret – as well as the source of her gifts – is that she is half-fox. She doesn’t realize this until she turns 14 and experiences her first menstruation. During that week, she is transformed into a fox, and she prowls the kingdom, attacking men who have abused their wives, daughters, and other women. As the people of the kingdom grow increasingly terrified, they blame her father and endanger both him and her.
While The Fox Maidens is filled with action and peril, its gains power from Kai’s emotional bonds with her father, who breaks tradition to include her in the martial arts training, and her sickly mother. Her mother, who fends off threats to the kingdom despite her fragile health, serves as Kai’s inspiration, and learning of her mother’s fateful bargain with Gumiho is a crushing blow, even if it’s the reason for Kai’s very existence. Readers will ponder the role of Gumiho, and Kai, in a society that has subjugated women and limited their options, leaving them vulnerable to abusive men. The sixteenth century Joseon kingdom is also a society divided by caste in which impoverished low-caste girls are often sold or kidnapped into slavery, including a girl with whom Kai falls in love years after a chance encounter in which she showed a brief kindness. The bright, wide-ranging color palette and traditional brushstroke art add to the atmosphere of this multilayered page-turner.
Written and illustrated by Robin Ha
Balzer & Bray, 2024
ISBN 978-0-06-268512-4 (pb)
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Lyn Miller-Lachmann is the author of the YA historical novel Torch (Carolrhoda Lab, 2022), winner of the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature and a 2022 Booklist Editors’ Choice, and the YA verse novel Eyes Open (Carolrhoda Lab 2024), chosen by Booklist as a Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth, 2024. She wrote the picture book Ways to Play (Levine Querido, 2023), illustrated by Gabriel Alborozo, and co-authored with Zetta Elliott the middle grade verse novel Moonwalking (FSG, 2022). Her nonfiction includes a biography of Temple Grandin in the She Persisted chapter book series from Philomel and Film Makers: 15 Groundbreaking Women Directors (co-authored with Tanisia “Tee” Moore) from Chicago Review Press. She translates books for youth from Portuguese to English, including the 2023 YA graphic novel Pardalita by Joana Estrela, published by Levine Querido, which was named a Batchelder Honor Book in 2024 and the graphic novel Our Beautiful Darkness (Enchanted Lion), by the Angolan author Ondjaki, illustrated by António Jorge Gonçalves.
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