Jane Yolen is one of the all-time greats. She is one of the biggest voices in young adult fiction and has helped guide and shape it into the juggernaut it is today. Her books are creative, unique, and deeply moving. So too is her latest YA novella ... remarkable ... Finding Baba Yaga is like a forest in a snowstorm: harsh, bleak, romantic, and breathtaking. Obviously Yolen knows her Russian folktales because this feels very, very Russian in the best possible way. I hope this isn’t the last time Yolen mixes young adult fiction, folktale adaptations, and poetry. Read it, then read it again.
[Yolen's] resistance to elevation may be precisely what allows her to produce fresh writing, accessible to teenagers, almost 50 years into her career ... can be devoured or consumed slowly, bite by page-sized bite ... creates a fantasy world that does what fantasy does best: imagines alternate worlds of real freedom and allows her readers entry to those realms.
Packs an emotional punch ... The elegant, black, cut-paper–style chapter ornaments emphasize the novel's fairy-tale roots and offer a whimsical counterpoint to Natasha's modern voice ... Yolen’s wordplay is sharp, engaging, and evocative; even folklore-illiterate readers will be enchanted by this slim volume.
