Sister Light Sister Dark Review

Bottom-Line: Sister Light Sister Dark is not a page turner in the classic sense but it is a book you'll want to return to again and again

According to the author, Jane Yolen, Sister Light, Sister Dark, is based on a short story of the same name written for Jessica Amanda Salmonson's anthology Heroic Visions, Sister Light and its companion White Jenna, which is also in my library, comprise one single book, but they were initially released in separate volumes. Published in 1988, the two (Sister Light, Sister Dark and White Jenna) would be put together in the late '90s as The Book of Great Alta.

Sister Light, Sister Dark is build around the myth of the Great Alta, Mother Goddess of the people of the Dales.  The Dales is an island nation where invaders from the mainland know as Garunian seek to supplant the Mother Goddess with their own gods.  Despite Garunian rule most of the people of the Dales still believe in the legend of the White Queen, the Anna, an avatar of the Goddess who brings with her change and upheaval, and an end to Garunian rule.   

In Sister Light, Sister Dark, the main character is Jenna (her dark sister is named Skada), who has been orphaned three times: once when her mother died in childbirth, once again when the midwife died while taking her away, and finally when the warrior woman who adopted her was killed in battle.  Thereafter she is taken in collectively and mothered by the daughters of the Hame.  But Jenna with her stock of stark white hair is different from the rest of the fosterlings. The Book of Light contains a prophecy wherein a white-haired child who lost three mothers is the Anna, the White Goddess, the savor, the Holy One. 

My Viewpoint

Jane Yolen has weaved and intricate and interesting tale that at some levels might be taken for fanciful feminism, a world where men must be avoided in order for women to grow to their full potential.  There is of course something to be said for the truths in her underling theme, one only has to look at our real world to see the glaring oppression of woman by men in most, if not all of our human societies, including America.  That theme did not repel me; instead it attracted me to the story and made it all the more enjoyable.  Although the power of women is front and center in Sister Light, Sister Dark, Jane Yolen resists the urge to paint males as two-dimensional creatures with stereotypical one track minds.  In this yarn, women are every bit the equal of men, and I see nothing wrong with that theme. 

Jenna as a character is a very well written, as a deeply (human) and reluctant would-be leader. She is endowed with diverse feelings about being seen as the Anna-she is drawn to the calling, but at the same time she sees it as a burden.  She is not written as some sort of Supergirl, the author endowed her with very (again) human and female emotions and that allows us, the readers to make a connection to her. 

Sister Light Sister Dark ends with a dangling storyline, setting up the second book in the series White Jenna; I have read the book, review to follow.  There is also a third book in the series I have not read, but intend to.  Sister Light Sister Dark is not a page turner in the classic sense but it is a book you'll want to return to again and again, which is part of the reason I still have to volume in my library.