Recenter reading

[landingtree]

Megan Whalen Turner has a children’s short story collection! I found it on a walk this morning, face up in a box of books left on the footpath in the brilliant sun. I knocked at the door of the closest house, but no one was there. I took four books, three for the shop (a Narnia, Black Hearts in Battersea, and The Princess Bride) and this one for me.

I must go back to the house and leave a note saying I did this, though, just to be sure. Several of the stories in this book have elements of moral fable, or involve dealings with wish-granting entities, and it is important to play fair. I spent much of the rest of the day reading the stories to my flatmate while they knitted and cooked. There is one called A Plague of Leprechaun, because it only takes one; a sweetly dark story about a ghost-haunted factory; a neat little tangle of humorous plot involving a missing prince that reminds me of Turner’s other books. Funny, sweet, well-turned, caring about representation without it being the main point.

Comments

[kore]

Fairy tales are pretty big on manners!:-)

[landofnowhere]

I read that one a long time ago, ano don't really remember any of the short stories, but I discovered MWT through her story "The Baby in the Night Deposit Box" in Sharyn November's anthology Firebirds, which is delightful -- I don't know how easy it is to find these days, though.

[sartorias]

I did not know she wrote short stories!