The Queen's Cloak: A Myth for Mid-Life

by Joan Chamberlain Engelsman

Book Overview

This original fairy tale about a queen who weaves herself a magic cloak draws the reader in through the use of traditional fairy-tale surroundings and provides a pointed metaphor for the struggles... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 093302973X
• ISBN13: 9780933029736
• Release Date: November 2013
• Publisher: Chiron Publications
• Length: 126 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

No more Bimbos

If you are a woman at mid-life (and I think that covers a span of some thirty or forty years), this is the book you should keep under your pillow every night. Joan Chamberlain Engelsman has written a tiny tome (110 pages) that turns into volumes as it rests on your psyche. Ever since Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty have been exposed as bimbos and frauds, women like Engelsman have understood our serious need for tales of out own and have labored to fill the gap. The book begins with the ostemsibly simple myth of a Queen who cannot wear her mother's cloak but must instead fashion her own out of flax that she grows herself, half of her mother's cloak, and yarn from gifts she had previously bestowed on the king, her children her sibling, and which she must now reclaim. As Engelsman is quick to acknowledge, the story of the Queen's cloak is hers only in so far as she was the first to write it down. In fact, the story belongs equally to all of us. For the bulk of the book, Engelsman shows us how she, her students, friends, and colleagues have read and continue to read this myth. The invitation to the reader is clear: use what you can from our "cloaks" but read the myth many times, knowing that there is nothing more truthful than your own reflections and knowing also that your responses and reflections will become enriched with each reading.

This is a wonderful, empowering story for women.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It is a great story about a woman's journey through this life as she begins to look for herself and learn how this is done. It is told from a woman's perspective and is positive and affirming for both men and women. My own struggles were written here and I can see the light at the end of my own tunnel. I think men who read this can have a new lense through which to see the women in their lives.