Into the Forest discussion

It's once again time for theme nominations for the March-May group read. (Actually, past time - given that February's such a short month.)

The theme can be a particular tale or myth, a geographical area, a mythical being, a culture, an idea, basically anything as long as books can be found for it!

Previous group read themes were: Djinn, Yule-Tide, Faeries, Dragons, Animal Transformations, Unicorns, the Folklore and Mythology of Ireland, the Folklore and Mythology of East Asia, Fairy Tale "Helpers", the Folklore and Mythology of the North American First Nations-Native Americans, Trees (Dryads, Enchanted Forests), Water (Mermaids, Selkies) and more!

You have one week to nominate.
Feb 22 the poll will go up and we can vote for the theme.
March 1 you can nominate books for the winning theme. We always read 3 books; one longer original tale or a collection of tales, one young adult novel and one adult novel.
March 8 the polls go up and you will have one week to vote for the books you want.
March 15 the winners will be announced!

Kathy wrote: "Norse Mythology & Legends
Or we could do broader and go with Northern Europe if needed"

You must have had that new Gaiman book on pre-order.
Norse/Nordic Mythology would work, I think. A quick Wiki lookup indicates that Germanic and Anglo-Saxon mythology derives from Norse, but allowing German also allows things like the Grimms - which goes far astray from your intent.

My nomination is really broad this time around...

By a woman of color or an Indigenous author

How strange! I did not get a notification for this thread! I only went on the group page when I remembered it was time to have another theme nomination.

I will try again and nominate Grimm's Fairy Tales for a theme.
So, an original Grimms tale or collection of tales, Ya and adult novels that are either retellings or containing several tales as themes.

Lila wrote: "How strange! I did not get a notification for this thread!"

Me, either! I only noticed the new topic b/c I was checking up on the bugs reported yesterday. I wonder if something is broken with notifications now too...sigh.

I'm going with something broad too: Feminist fairy tales/retellings.

Ooh all these sound good. I'm nominating Beauty and the Beast inspired tales to coincide with the movie.

American Fairy Tales

Notifications have been flaky all day ... Sometimes it's just fine and other times you're getting notifications for things that happened hours ago.

I'd like to suggest . . . .

Myths and/or fairy tales involving A Quest

Tamara wrote: "I'd like to suggest . . . .

Myths and/or fairy tales involving A Quest"

Leah wrote: "My nomination is really broad this time around...

By a woman of color or an Indigenous author"

Robyn wrote: "Folklore and Mythology of Africa"

All of those sound good too!

Mary wrote: "American Fairy Tales"

When you say "American", do you mean North, South, Central? Just the US?
Native American or post-colonial?
All of the above?

US

Robyn wrote: "Folklore and Mythology of Africa"

All Africa or a particular tribe, region, or country?

Boutrose wrote: "I would like to nominate a broad concept as well,Something based around the hamsa and the evil eye.
As a symbol originating in North Africa it is significant in Jewish, Muslim, and mena and Gree..."

I think that's a great idea, but maybe the theme needs to be broadened or reworded. Because of the fact that we read original tales, YA novels and adult novels, we need to be able to find books that fit with the theme. I did a search for hamsa, besides the definition I only found jewellery sites,no books. I also looked for novels about the hand of Fatima, the evil eye with no results, except for a few books that when I read the descriptions, did not have much to do with this theme.
The hand of Fatima is mentioned one of the stories in The Hakawati, but just one story.

Just in case others here don't know, Hamsa is the symbol of the hand ( hand of Fatima) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamsa which protects against the evil eye. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_eye
As Boutrose already said it's a prevalent belief throughout the Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean.

Robyn wrote: "Chris wrote: "Robyn wrote: "Folklore and Mythology of Africa"

All Africa or a particular tribe, region, or country?"

I originally wanted to put Nigeria. I just thought it'd be easier to find plen..."

Personally I think we should allow for many options so keep it the entire continent, however if most of you want it to be more specific that's okay too.

I agree with keeping Africa broad (entire continent) versus narrowing in on specific country simply because we will all have more options when it comes to book noms.

I'd normally do a list and ask if I missed anything or if there were any last minute suggestions, but I forgot and we're cutting it close as it is.

Here's the poll, open to the end of the month.
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

If I DID miss anything, please let me know and I can retroactively add it for you.

Norse Mythology won. Now it's time to nominate books!
Here is the link to the thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...