"The One Hundred Nights of Hero" is a re-imagined take on the classic "The Arabian Nights".Author and illustrator, Isabel Greenberg, weaves an enchanting tale about storytellers. I love reading books about books, and that goes double for stories about storytellers. If you're unfamiliar with "Arabian Nights", or any of the other re-tellings that have surfaced, the general plot is of a ruler who takes a different wife every night, presumably because after the wedding night, the wife is killed. The story follows the current wife who cleverly comes up with stories that end on such a cliffhanger, the ruler decides not to kill her for another day because he wants to keep hearing the rest of the story. Eventually, he falls in love with her.
Probably the biggest flip this story does, is the wife, Cherry, is not the one telling the stories. It's her maid and lover, Hero, who tells the stories to a would-be suitor who is determined to steal the Cherry's virtue. If he is successful, the Cherry's husband will kill her when he returns from a business trip. There is a lot at stake, here, and by agreeing to stay and try to help, Hero has cosigned herself to whatever fate befalls Cherry if they are discovered. Ironically, in a society where women aren't allowed to read or write or have any respect, Hero's stories are all about strong, powerful women challenging the social standards around them; and the would-be suitor (and guards, for that matter) are eating it up! Cherry and Hero's love is touching and so moving it brought me to tears a couple of times. You can't help but start rooting for them, even though the odds are stacked against these two ever finding their own happily-ever-after. If you enjoy stories of star-crossed, forbidden love, this is for you.
"Hero...we should have run away. We should have done it before I married him. We should have risked it. Now his guards watch us all day. And it's too late."
The illustrations are mostly black and white with some gold and blue tones thrown in occasionally. Currently, this book is only available in hardcover or on Kindle, but I highly recommend splurging for the hardcover. Some of the full page, and two-page spreads are filled with intricate details and subtle clues that I believe wouldn't translate well to an e-reader. The art style is sketchy, or reminiscent of cave drawings, which lends a sense of antiquity to the story. I felt like I was sitting around a campfire with a bunch of women exchanging stories.
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