Sister Light, Sister Dark (1988) precedes White Jenna in this series of two novels. The first volume follows the maturation of Jenna from babyhood to her early teens, stressing her alienation from and adjustment to her society.

The novel ends with Jenna's acceptance of her role as the prophesied White Goddess or Anna, poised to set forth on her journey to warn the Hames about enemy armies of men. Yolen's literary fairy tale "The Thirteenth Fey," loosely based on "Sleeping Beauty," contains a fairy-narrator's speculations about inequitable gender relations, decadent monarchy, and the rise of democracy.