The Last Dragon
Jane Yolen, illustrated by Rebecca Guay
ISBN: 9781616558741
Read August 15, 2016
An introduction by Neil Gaiman is sweet, but unnecessary for this sweet and delightfully traditional dragon slaying fairy tale.
Once upon a time there was an island that was plagued by dragons, who just adored eating people. Apparently we taste good. The folk banded together and slayed them all. Now it's hundreds of years later, and dragons are a faded memory - all dead, all gone. Until one final egg hatches, and a new dragon begins to grow up in the woods, all fire and hatred and appetite.
We join a healer's family and a pair of young boys searching for a hero, all desperate to save their town from this re-born threat from the past.
The art is beautiful, the characters are individualized as much as possible given the short length of the story, and a sweet little romance doesn't detract from the plot to destroy the dragon and save the townsfolk.
Showing posts with label classic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classic. Show all posts
Monday, August 22, 2016
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Juvenile Classic: Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfeild and Diane Goode
Ballet Shoes
Noel Streatfeild, illustrated by Diane Goode
ISBN: 0679901051 (library binding)
Re-read while off at a conference.
I don't remember the first time I read this book, but I know it wasn't during childhood. Which is a crying shame, because I would have loved this sweet little classic domestic about three adopted siblings finding their passions and their purpose in the worlds of dance and performance and machinery.
The plot is simple: an old man is an inveterate traveler and fossil hunter, and he picks up three "fossils" along the way that are a bit different. They're left at his big home in the care of "nanny" and his grand-niece, and while he's away, they grow up in difficult financial circumstances, necessitating them hosting boarders and the girls performing (dance and acting) professionally to earn money as soon as possible.
It's like Alcott, but less twee, and not really any moralizing at all.
There's a movie also, with a very peculiarly aged (and blonde!) Emma Watson, which I haven't seen yet, but seems watchable in that sort of "Shirley Temple" adorable saccharine way.
Noel Streatfeild, illustrated by Diane Goode
ISBN: 0679901051 (library binding)
Re-read while off at a conference.
I don't remember the first time I read this book, but I know it wasn't during childhood. Which is a crying shame, because I would have loved this sweet little classic domestic about three adopted siblings finding their passions and their purpose in the worlds of dance and performance and machinery.
The plot is simple: an old man is an inveterate traveler and fossil hunter, and he picks up three "fossils" along the way that are a bit different. They're left at his big home in the care of "nanny" and his grand-niece, and while he's away, they grow up in difficult financial circumstances, necessitating them hosting boarders and the girls performing (dance and acting) professionally to earn money as soon as possible.
It's like Alcott, but less twee, and not really any moralizing at all.
There's a movie also, with a very peculiarly aged (and blonde!) Emma Watson, which I haven't seen yet, but seems watchable in that sort of "Shirley Temple" adorable saccharine way.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Juv Fantasy: Magic at Wychwood, Sally Watson, illustrated by Frank Bozzo
Magic at Wychwood
Sally Watson, illustrated by Frank Bozzo
ISBN: 0394914686 (library binding)
Read May 27, 2016
Juv Classic Fantasy. Very similar in feel and spunk to the more recent Tuesdays at the Castle.
This was a cute little short read, again found while helping a patron find an old childhood read. This one is about a royal family, in particular the youngest daughter: spunky, redheaded, un-ladylike Princess Elaine, and their various adventures concerning magical happenings in and around the castle. Extremely laid back, no real peril (people do get changed into animals and inanimate things, but everything always comes right in the end). Elaine is a delightful hero, and her big brother Arthur takes the stage a few times also, and he is determinedly chivalrous and delightful in his adherence to the Code, especially when everyone else in the family is being much more sensible.
Very cute, and a great choice for bedtime serial readings - each "chapter" is a self-contained story that only slightly builds on the ones before it, up til the very end when everything gets tied off delightfully.
Sally Watson, illustrated by Frank Bozzo
ISBN: 0394914686 (library binding)
Read May 27, 2016
Juv Classic Fantasy. Very similar in feel and spunk to the more recent Tuesdays at the Castle.
This was a cute little short read, again found while helping a patron find an old childhood read. This one is about a royal family, in particular the youngest daughter: spunky, redheaded, un-ladylike Princess Elaine, and their various adventures concerning magical happenings in and around the castle. Extremely laid back, no real peril (people do get changed into animals and inanimate things, but everything always comes right in the end). Elaine is a delightful hero, and her big brother Arthur takes the stage a few times also, and he is determinedly chivalrous and delightful in his adherence to the Code, especially when everyone else in the family is being much more sensible.
Very cute, and a great choice for bedtime serial readings - each "chapter" is a self-contained story that only slightly builds on the ones before it, up til the very end when everything gets tied off delightfully.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Juvenile Fantasy: The Girl, The Dragon, and the Wild Magic, Dave Luckett
The Girl, The Dragon, and the Wild Magic (Rhianna trilogy)
Dave Luckett
ISBN: 0439411874
Scholastic paperback (originally published in Australia)
Read April 12, 2016
This is a cute little standalone juvenile fantasy, perfect for a reluctant reading young lady, or perhaps as a stepping stone to the Alanna books (Song of the Lioness series, Tamora Pierce) or The Hero and the Crown/The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley).
Rhianna is really bad at magic. The rules are inconsistent and the logic is fuzzy, and all of her attempts at spellcasting end in catastrophic failure. Makes sense, because for most people, too little magic is the problem, and for Rhianna, a rare Wild Magic talent means that her problems stem from too much magic - and therefore not enough control. Her talent is pulling the raw power from the entire countryside, and until she can learn control herself, the court wizard works out a catch-and-release mechanism - which unfortunately a covetous local wizard and his nasty son turn against both Rhianna and the locals. Comeuppance is swift and karmic, when his foolhardy and greedy nature calls a dragon to town, giving Rhianna a chance to show off how well she can do in a situation where more magic is a help rather than a hindrance.
Cute, sweet, innocent, and easily readable. There are two sequels:
The Girl, the Apprentice, and the Dogs of Iron
The Girl, the Queen, and the Castle
Dave Luckett
ISBN: 0439411874
Scholastic paperback (originally published in Australia)
Read April 12, 2016
This is a cute little standalone juvenile fantasy, perfect for a reluctant reading young lady, or perhaps as a stepping stone to the Alanna books (Song of the Lioness series, Tamora Pierce) or The Hero and the Crown/The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley).
Rhianna is really bad at magic. The rules are inconsistent and the logic is fuzzy, and all of her attempts at spellcasting end in catastrophic failure. Makes sense, because for most people, too little magic is the problem, and for Rhianna, a rare Wild Magic talent means that her problems stem from too much magic - and therefore not enough control. Her talent is pulling the raw power from the entire countryside, and until she can learn control herself, the court wizard works out a catch-and-release mechanism - which unfortunately a covetous local wizard and his nasty son turn against both Rhianna and the locals. Comeuppance is swift and karmic, when his foolhardy and greedy nature calls a dragon to town, giving Rhianna a chance to show off how well she can do in a situation where more magic is a help rather than a hindrance.
Cute, sweet, innocent, and easily readable. There are two sequels:
The Girl, the Apprentice, and the Dogs of Iron
The Girl, the Queen, and the Castle
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Juvenile Fiction: Short and Shivery, Robert D. San Souci & Katherine Coville
Short and Shivery
Robert D. San Souci, illustrated by Katherine Coville
ISBN: 0440418046 (Yearling paperback)
Re-Read August 2, 2015
I had this book as a child, so when I saw it in the "freebies" bin at a local used book store, I couldn't help but snatch it back up and re-read the stories. I was especially interested in revisiting this now that I've been working on my own storytelling. I seem to be edging towards southern versions of tales, and there were three in particular that were very interesting: Tailypo (of course), The Witch Cat, and Scared to Death.
Short summary and thoughts on each "shivery" in the collection:
1) The Robber Bridegroom, from the Brothers Grimm.
A classic fairy tale set-up with a greedy merchant and a lovely, clever, and resourceful daughter who rescues herself and an old crone from being sold into marriage slavery to a sadistic robber.
Some interesting modern parallels here with the recent high-profile long-term kidnapping cases, and to the Boko Haram / ISIS focus on terrorism through sexual slavery. Some nasty things in the world, but they aren't new things.
2) Jack Frost, from the Russian folklore tradition.
Another classic fairy tale. A mother with a daughter and step-daughter, of course the step-child is the good one who is despised and ill-treated. Mother sends her out into the harsh Russian winter to freeze, but the girl is so good and sweet that even cold-hearted Jack Frost is touched, and gifts her with furs and diamonds. Mom sends the sulky real daughter out to get her own share, but the girl can't resist being a snot, and is frozen to death by morning.
Love the parallels here with Diamonds and Toads, and the faint feel of Vasilisa and Baba Yaga stories. There are some interesting links possible with this story.
3) The Waterfall of Ghosts, from a Japanese folktale.
This one was interesting, because it was mainly women characters. A group of weavers in a town below a haunted waterfall sit up late one night talking boasts, and one girl gets carried away, boasting that she'll travel to the shrine at the base of the waterfall and back that very night, and bring the donation box back with her as proof. The other girls all pledge their day's weaving if she does. She travels out, but is overcome by greed and steals the coins from the box, bringing a nearly-empty box back to the others and bemoaning the sad state of charity in the world. Later that night, she's hunted down by the ghosts of the waterfall, and returns the money to the shrine, along with all her winnings from her boast.
I was mainly interested that this story has the boastful claims entirely among women. Usually it's a group of men who are trying to one-up each other. This made for a nice change.
4) The Ghost's Cap, from a Russian ghost story.
Another boaster, but this one is a girl who is trying to show off for the boy she's after. She brags that she'll go to a haunted graveyard and return with the name of the ghost that people have seen there. She goes and scoffs at the ghost (believing it to be her boy) and snatches the cap from his head to take back as proof she went. She gathers her winnings, and tosses the nasty cap into the river. That night, she's visited by a presence wanting the cap back, but she hasn't got it. A sad ending for her, as the priest tries an exorcism, and the vengeful ghost takes the girl back with him, leaving nothing but her hair and jacket behind.
This one has fun shades of Tailypo there, and that Lovecraft story about the gem from the Dutch grave - in that losing the item the ghost wants dooms the person.
5) The Witch Cat, from Virginia, USA.
A widower and his young daughter go against local advice and settle in an abandoned farmstead next to a pond. The widower is soon courted by a willowy young lady from the plot next door, with bright green eyes and long sharp nails. His daughter is afraid of the lady, but the father is smitten, until the girl begins to take ill and complain of something stealing her breath at night. The farmer sits up one night to trap the intruder, and is shocked to chop the arm off of an enormous black cat creature. The next morning, the lady is also missing an arm, and the farmer finally figures it out. Too late for him, as the confrontation kills both him and the lady, leaving the daughter an orphan.
This one is great fun. The nice touch for me is the townspeople warning them away from the suspiciously empty homestead, without ever coming out and accusing anyone of anything.
6) The Green Mist, from Lincolnshire, England.
This is one of the only fae tales in the collection. I also know it as Crown of Cowslips. A village girl is very ill one winter, and is about to die, but she declares that if she could live "just one summer like the cowslips, she'd be content." Her mother hushes her quickly, but that night the healing spring "green mist" flows over the land and the girl recovers. That spring she is lively and happy, and falls in love as spring begins to mature into summer. Her lover spots the stand of cowslips beside the door and plucks them to make a summer crown for his love, but when she sees the cut flowers she shrieks and bars the door, leaving him alone and confused. She dies that night during the Summer festival.
There are a lot of things going on with this one. Firstly, the fae influence is slight but present. Her declaration is understood to be heard by a bogie and granted as an evil mischief. I'm also interested in the specificity that she's only to live as long as those specific cowslips (and why, if the mother was so worried about anyone messing with them, she didn't just put a sign up beside them). I also feel really bad for our unnamed suitor, who did everything right, and got shut out and abandoned at the end with no explanation. If I were telling, I think that would be the main thing that got changed, or I'd use it to start some sort of Orpheo & Eurycide sort of quest.
7) The Cegua, from Costa Rica.
A traveler-beware tale; a version of the nasty hitch-hiker. A young man is traveling late at night and sees a beautiful maiden by the side of the road. He offers her a ride, and she slowly morphs into a nightmare being with a skeletal horse's head and long talons. He's saved by arriving at the busy hacienda he was traveling to.
I always get a little grumpy about these - when the mysterious old man tells you at the cafe before your trip that seductive strangers are actually demon creatures, why would you then immediately let the sweet seductive girl onto your horse with you?
8) The Ghostly Little Girl, from gold-rush California.
A group of girls makes a new friend: a girl from the settlement of fishing shacks along the ocean. The girl is excited to be going to school with her new friends, but makes one last trip out with her father - and that night is a terrific storm, and they never come back. The girls worry about their new friend, and head down to the now-abandoned shack to see if they can find her - but find her waterlogged ghost instead.
Extra creepy because of the inclusion of grade-school kids for the cast-members. Love the morbid descriptions of the moldy old fishing shack and the wet slap of the ocean waves.
9) The Midnight Mass of the Dead, Norse folktale.
A very pious elderly lady attends mass every day, and is excited to attend the very first early Christmas mass, so she sets out her best clothes, and says a prayer for her best friend, who died earlier in the year. Awakened by a strange light, she fears she's late for church, and hurries to the chapel, where a strange priest and oddly-familiar parishioners fill the building. She's even more upset when the sermon and verses are all about death and punishment and hatred of the living. When she realizes that the only sound coming from the pews is from her, she realizes her mistake. Her newly-dead friend warns her to run before the service is over, but she is too slow, and loses her coat to the vengeful dead old neighbors as she flees. Returning to church the next morning, the shreds of her coat are too much to bear, and she flees once more.
The sweet dead friend giving her a warning was a nice touch, but I wanted to know why the dead are so unhappy on Christmas particularly, and why they were so evil and confrontational to begin with. There's also a sloppy bit at the ending where the wording is contradictory and confusing.
10) Tailypo, rural USA.
An old man lives in the woods with his hunting dogs, but he's been on lean times - nothing to hunt or fish for weeks. So when he spies a strange critter in his cabin and evicts it by hacking off it's long luxurious tale, he isn't too proud to stew that tail right up and eat it for dinner. That night he hears a whisper "where's my tailypo?" and he sends a dog out after it. The dog doesn't return, but the voice does. Next dog goes and fails to return, and the voice is soon back. Last dog is now in bed with him, but he sends it out and it's gone with a horrible yelp - and the voice is now inside, and now on the bed. He finally claims "I don't have your tailypo!" and the voice rejoins "Oh yes you have!" and eats him right up.
This one has been around for ages. It would be interesting to see if it could be linked up with some other tales and made longer or more elaborate without ruining the arc of the horror about the thing creeping up to exact revenge.
11) Lady Eleanor's Mantle, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
This one claims to be based on a true story. Lady Eleanor is from England, so she's miles better than any of the hick rube Americans in this stupid Boston town. She insists on wearing her fancy mantle from the continent, and likewise insists on scorning a young suitor who had followed her across the ocean. A ball was held in the Lady's honor to welcome her, and all noted her reserve and weary aspect, but also noted the beauty of the English mantle. Halfway through, the ball was cancelled abruptly, when the Lady's absence was noted. That next morning, the fearsome warning ran through the city - a smallpox outbreak, and the Lady's house was quarantined. The stinger has the young man braving disease to race to his Lady's side, where he finds a hideous pocked figure in her bed, and goes quite mad.
A very strange early entry in the world of medical suspense thrillers.
12) The Soldier and the Vampire, a folktale from Russia
Another traveler-beware tale like The Cegua, and a Clever-Jack sort of story. A Russian soldier is on leave to attend his sister's wedding, when he's warned about a wizard who recently died in a nearby village. He travels home without seeing anything amiss, until he reaches the house and discovers his sister, anemic and near death. The soldier, being a man of the world, knows that the wizard is using vampirism to steal the life from his sister and return from the dead. That just can't be allowed, so he races off in the night to find the wizard's grave and kill it for good. Along the road, he is joined by a silent figure, who he realizes is the evil one himself, and the soldier passes himself off as an apprentice wizard. They then walk and camp in companionable nature, until the wizard reveals that he was not taken in by the soldier's ruse, and they fight until dawn, when the evil one collapses, then morphs into a writhing mass of insects and grubs that the soldier has to individually exterminate to truly kill the monster.
Nice touch with the bugs at the end. Would have liked to get more than one sentence about the sister recovering.
13) The Skeleton's Dance, from Japan.
Two friends head off to the big city to make their fortunes. One works hard and becomes wealthy, while the other falls in with gamblers and druggies. They both decide to travel back to their hometown to get Mr Bad Life Choices away from his temptations, but BLC realizes he has a chance at a new life, and kills his friend in a mountain pass, then claims his friend's life as his own. After running through all his friend's money and accrued goodwill, he heads back to the city, and is accosted by his friend's bones laying in the path where he was killed so many months before. The bones rise up and offer to provide a means of easy employment - the bones will dance for free (needing no food or support) and the friend can collect easy money from people gawping at the spectacle. This works great for Mr BLC until he's famous enough to be hosted by the local lord, whereupon the skeleton fails to act, is abused, and finally calls BLC out on his treachery and murder.
A really nice and satisfactory delayed-justice story. Loved the way that BLC just walked right into his own doom and didn't see it coming, because he was too wrapped up in his own selfishness and feeling like everyone owed him.
14) Scared to Death, from Charleston, USA.
Another braggart tale. This one has a young debutante trying to steal a beau away from his current girlfriend, a shy and mousey girl. In an attempt to impress the young man, the young lady swears she'll go to a haunted grave in the nearby graveyard, and snatches the gentleman's walking stick to leave at the grave as proof. She heads out alone, makes it over to the grave, and slams the walking stick into the soft ground, but she's nervous and jittery in the spooky darkness. Her fears are realized when she tries to leave and she's held back by a mysterious unseen force. She freaks out, falls down, and is found dead the next morning, her cloak pinned to the ground by the walking stick she slammed down her own self.
This one also is nicely karmic - if you're going to be a snotty braggart, don't be stupid about it. It also has a nice common-sense touch to it. Everyone's had a not-so-proud moment when you worked yourself up or scared yourself about something that turned out to be completely harmless or normal.
15) Swallowed Alive, a British folktale.
A sneaky washerwoman is always around when things go missing, and she' accused by her neighbors of being a thief. She calls upon God and the Earth as her witnesses that she's an honest woman, even when she's pretty much caught in the act. The earth opens up like a whirlpool and sucks her in up to her waist, and the priest begs her to repent and be saved, but she insists that she's not a thief, whereupon the whirlpool sucks her entirely in, and subsequently spits back out the stolen items.
This one reads like the awful heavy-handed morality tales I got fed as a child from the Uncle Arthur books. Yikes.
16) The Deacon's Ghost, an Icelandic folktale.
A Deacon lived on one side of a fjord, and his love on the other. They fell in love one winter, and he promised to come back and fetch her for a wedding the next winter as soon as the fjord ices over again. Sadly, he's killed on his way back in a freak accident, and she doesn't know it. When he returns to fetch her, he acts strangely, but she's simply glad to see him again. They get to the church, but it's late at night, and he's not headed towards the church itself, but to the churchyard, where there's a single disturbed and empty grave! She fights free, and is guarded by the villagers every night from the undead lovesick deacon, until a priest from the closest city arrives to put him down for good.
This one was very sad. I felt sorry for the poor deacon and the poor girl who was left alone, and then frightened out of her wits afterwards. Sad ghost stories are harder, because they really drive home the utter unfairness of life and death.
17) Nuckelavee, from the Orkney Islands.
Short and shivery indeed. Nuckelavee is a weird cross between a kelpie and a demon, and it terrorizes the islanders, but is easily avoided by crossing fresh running water. This short bit tells of a local man's bad night when he found Nuckelavee coming towards him on a long empty road, with no running water nearby. A brazen approach, a quick sprint, and a tiny rivulet defeats the monster.
Not much too this one, but it's a fun little story that I can totally see a grizzled old man telling in a pub as a sort of "big fish" story.
18) Adventure of the German Student, Washington Irving.
Our German student has arrived in Paris to rid himself of a gloomy obsession; a demon is after his soul. Unfortunately, his timing isn't so hot, as he arrives just as Revolutionary fervor is hitting it's peak, and the smell of blood from the guillotines hangs heavy in the air. Understandably, his morbid fancies aren't much improved, and he hides out in his garret trying to avoid the masses of frenzied Parisians. He does have to head out for groceries, and tries to do so in the early mornings or late evenings when the streets are less crowded. One night walking home he spies a weeping lady on the steps of the guillotine. He rescues her and takes her home, and over the night falls in love with the wild young mourner. They pledge their hearts and souls, and he heads off the next morning without disturbing her to look for a bigger apartment. On his return, he finds her beheaded, and the officers confirm his worst fears - the lady was a victim of the guillotine the day before, and he's now pledged his everlasting soul to a dead woman walking.
This one needs a better name, to be honest. The French Lover would be at least slightly more descriptive. I love the association with a specific place and specific events, and the descriptions of the poor lady and the besotted (although not so bright) student are lively and morbid all at the same time. One of my favorites from the book.
19) Billy Moseby's Night Ride, from New England, USA.
Billy lives with his grandparents out on their rural farmstead, and everyone keeps clear of old Francis Woolcott - rumor is that he's a wizard. Billy is overcome with curiosity, and spies on the neighbor's bonfire one night, and is kidnapped on a wild ride through the countryside as the man releases spirits and hexes to torment his neighbors. When the night is over, Billy is encouraged to leave well enough alone, but now he's really inspired - he wants power like that himself. When he finally gets his courage up to go apprentice himself, he's too late. Woolcott is lying near death, and Billy watches helplessly as the demons that Woolcott worked with return in force to fetch his unwilling pitiful soul off to hell.
Another of the morality tale sort, but at least it has a younger protagonist, and an interesting look at the predjudices of old farm people. This one might be an interesting pairing with the Witch Cat - Woolcott and the cat lady would be an interesting pair.
20) The Hunter in the Haunted Forest, compiled from three Teton Sioux tales.
A brave hunter must venture into the haunted forest to feed his starving family, even though he knows that powerful spirits run rampant there, and have no love for the living. First he is overtaken by a powerful storm, and tries to shelter in a clearing, in a convenient teepee, but he overhears voices inside planning dark plots, and races away from them. When he camps deeper in the woods, and old man comes to his campfire, and reveals himself to be a ghost. The ghost offers a wager - if they wrestle and the hunter wins, he'll find plentiful game and a peaceful forest, but if the ghost wins, the hunter will be haunted and his whole family will die from hunger. The hunter wins (with a nice trick) and turns the ghostly old haunt into ashes, and then is delighted to find that the pact holds true, and the game is plentiful thereafter.
It's easy to tell that these are disconnected snippets, but I think that they all flow together decently well - they're more of a sequential narrative than a single arc, but they all hang together well, and give a nice picture of how frightening it must have been to be a hunter alone in the fall woods, knowing your skill is all that keeps your family alive.
21) Brother and Sister, a folktale found in Kenya, Zambia, and Malawi.
Another nasty-bridegroom story. A sister is promised in marriage to a man claiming to be from a rich neighboring tribe, but her brother is supicious of the strangely-acting man. He follows the wedded couple to the man's home, and quickly realizes it's a den of hyena demons. While the demon family is outside changing form, the boy races into the hut to warn his sister. They block the entrance to the enclosed yard with thorns, and barricade themselves in the hut, then as the demons continue to advance, escape out a window and into the nearby trees, where they flee frantically as the hyenas pursue them (destroying the trees as they go) until they reach a wide river. The bridegroom hyena continues to swim after them, even after the sun rises and he changes shape back to a man, but the siblings pelt him with rocks until he turns back.
A nice sibling story, but a little frustrating that all of the escape ideas are from the brother. Ah well.
22) The Lovers of Dismal Swamp, from Virginia, USA
A young pair of lovers lived on the edge of a swamp, until one day the young lady took sick and died. Her lover was utterly distraught, and refused to believe she was dead. As time went on, he began to obsess that she was alive, out in the swamp, and needed him to rescue her. He rushed out into the swamp one day, convinced that he saw her in the mist, with a lantern in her hand. He built a homemade raft and poled out towards her, and that was the last anyone saw him alive. Now hunters and fishers in that swamp claim you can see the duo poling a rickety raft along the waterways at dusk.
Short and shivery indeed - just over two pages long! The tone of this one is interesting, because there's no malice or evil ascribed to the boy or girl, even as ghosts.
23) Boneless, Shetland Isles.
Villagers were terrorized by a creature they called "Boneless" or simply "It" because no one could agree on what it looked like, or even what sort of thing it was. It gave off an aura of evil and terrorized households and farm animals simply by it's presence. One Christmas night, a farmer had enough. After a night of It bumping against his doors and scaring his cattle, he resolved to kill it for good. He raced out into the night and hurled an axe at it, killing it near the sea-cliff edge, and then burying it for good measure. That spring, a folklorist was curious about the legend, and learned where the burial spot was. He began to dig it up, until he noticed the "curdled light" and the milky fog seeping out of the hole. He ran for his life, and watched as It seeped out of the hole and headed towards the ocean. Two nights later, as he was wandering the cliff edges, he saw It in the water, long and stretched out, and formless. He turned to run, but it overtook him in an instant, and wrapped misty tentacles around him, dragging him over the edge of the cliff. He prayed desperately aloud, and the thing recoiled, took fire, released him, fell, and sizzled on the surface of the water below.
This sounds like a folktale that might have influenced Lovecraft back in the day. The insistence on the thing being unformed and indescribable, of strange oil-shimmer colors on white fish-belly hue, and the affinity to water - sounds like a baby shoggoth to me. The fact that a folklorist is the one to poke at it and get punished for his temerity is also very Lovecraftian.
24) The Death Waltz, New Mexico
Elizabeth was newly come to Fort Union, and she was a beauty from back East. Everyone adored her, and all the soldiers and ranchers courted her, but she was too good for any of them, and laughed at them. The handsomest and best social match was Frank Sutter, who was smitten with him. She was perfectly happy to be courted by such a fine officer, and when they had to leave on a raid and he asked her hand, she agreed - and upped the deal by promising that even if he died, she'd never wed another. Of course, the obvious happens. During the raid, someone saw him go down, but his body was never recovered. The fort gossips noted that Elizabeth didn't seem too perturbed by the death of her forever love, and tongues wagged even more harshly when she became engaged to a man from back East, who was leaving the fort to return there. At the wedding reception, the night turned stormy and wild, and the doors slammed open to reveal Sutter, muddy and corpselike, with terrible wounds all over his body. He grabbed the new bride from her husband, motioned to the band, and began a terrible waltz with her - by the end of it she was dead.
This was another of the ones I remembered from childhood, because I always thought the "bride" was a silly heartless thing to take advantage of someone and make stupid promises, especially to a soldier in wartime. Serves her right.
25) The Ghost of Misery Hill, California, USA.
Old Tom Bowers worked the mine on Misery Hill, until he passed away. He was an ornery and private man, and even after he passed, no one could bring themselves to jump his claim - even after death. That is, until Jim Brandon's debts got so bad he had no other choice. It started calmly enough, with him noticing that his tools and equipment were misplaced every morning. Then he started noticing someone using his sluice to pan gold. If that wasn't bad enough, then the notices started going up, claiming the mine in Tom Bower's name. Then he saw the ghost and his nerves vanished, and he shot it - which of course made Old Tom mighty unhappy, and the now-vengeful ghost came after Jim with his pickaxe. No one ever saw Jim again, but they did find his gun - pinned to the ground by a faintly-glowing pick driven straight through the barrel.
A good old wild-west gold-mining ghost story is such fun.
26) The Loup-Garou, a French-Canadian folktale.
Another short one, of the evil-thing-chasing-you-in-the-woods category. Pierre lives in a lovely cabin in the woods, and he and his wife are very happy there, until she gets sick and he has to ride through the woods after dark to fetch a doctor for her. He sets off, and while they're making good time at first, suddenly the horse slows down as if he's pulling a heavy load. Pierre looks behind him - straight into the eyes of an enormous wolf. Pierre freaks out, and he and the horse begin the run for their lives, but it's no use - the thing catches them. Pierre draws his knife and manages to draw blood before the wolf eviscerates him, and the loup-garou (as tradition dictates) is forced to change back into human form and flee. Pierre gets while the getting is good, and he and the doctor make sure to bring crosses with them as they pass through the woods on the return trip.
This one really isn't much, but the requirement to change to human and flee if blood is drawn is an interestingly specific limitation. I am very curious about that part.
27) The Golem, an original tale based on Jewish folklore.
A merchant learned of the mysteries of the golem, and hired a rabbi to create one for him. He immediately began abusing this perfect servant, treating it like the dirt it came from. But the golem kept growing, and it slowly got less obedient, and even began to act sullen and unhappy. The merchant refused to admit that he had a problem, and kept on abusing his magical servant, until one day he woke to find the golem systematically dismantling his house. He flees to the rabbi who teaches him how to destroy the golem, but when the merchant manages to do so, the golem collapses into a mass of inanimate clay that falls onto the merchant, crushing him to death.
LOVED this story, and the just desserts of the pompous asshole merchant who thought he had the perfect slave to abuse.
28) Lavender, raodsides, USA. (see also Seanan McGuire's Sparrow Hill Road's base ghost story)
Two guys were headed to the dance, and they see a pretty girl by the side of the road, dressed in a lavender party dress. They stop and pick her up, and one of the boys lends her his jacket. They have a great time at the dance, but when it's time to leave, the girl is distraught and demands to be let out on the side of the road, close to where they found her originally. The boys are convinced she was just "letting them down easy" because she didn't want to go steady with either of them, and they head down the dirt driveway to visit her the next day. The door is opened by an ancient woman, who weeps when she hears their story. Her little girl's favorite color was lavender, and she's been dead for nearly 50 years now - every spring she goes out to dance with the boys, and every time she almost gets back home before she fades away. The boys think this is a set-up or a trick and leave affronted, until they see the graveyard next door, with Lavender's gravestone draped with the letter jacket from last night draped over it.
Sweet and sad, and one of my favorite ghost stories. Love how it's so universally USA - it doesn't need a time or a place or any identifying details to be haunting and mystical.
29) The Goblin Spider, a legend from Japan.
Raiko, the famous samurai, is sent by the lord to kill a ferocious goblin that is shaped like a giant spider, and is terrorizing the countryside. On the way there, he is directed by the floating skull of a former victim of the spider. They find a deserted palace, inhabited by a creepy bug like ancient crone. She warns them away, then shifts into a mist and sinks through the floor as a legion of demons attack the samurai and his companion. They fight for hours, until the sun begins to rise, and the demons vanish. Then a beautiful pale maiden appears, but blinds them with unwholesome light, and shapeshifts into a creepy elongated monstrosity that oozes sticky white threads. She also changes to mist and seeps into the floor, and the samurai realize that she bleeds white sticky blood. The sun has fully risen, and now the samurai realize that there is a cavern or hollow beneath the flagstones. They pull them up, angering the mighty spider (who was the hag, and then the fair maiden) who attacks them brutally. The samurai fight valiantly, and finally slay the hellish spider beast, and take it's head back to court for their rewards.
Ew. Spiders.
30) The Halloween Pony, a folktale from France.
Grandmother warned the boys to stay inside on Halloween night, but the lively lads are determined to have some fun. They run out and find a neighbor's pony has gotten loose from it's pen. They all pile on, and strangely, even 4, 5, 6 and more boys seem to fit comfortably on the small pony. The pony doesn't even seem to mind the weight, and frolics and cavorts around, until he reaches the seaside, and the boys try to slow it down. It refuses, and they then try to dismount, but they're stuck. The boys can do nothing but watch in terror as the pony descends into the sea, and none of the village boys who were out that night were ever found.
So, the French version of kelpies, essentially. Plus a little morality guilt laid in on top.
I would have preferred this collection to stop at 28, and just skipped the spider and the silly morals, and ended on a high note with Lavender. Ahh well.
Robert D. San Souci, illustrated by Katherine Coville
ISBN: 0440418046 (Yearling paperback)
Re-Read August 2, 2015
I had this book as a child, so when I saw it in the "freebies" bin at a local used book store, I couldn't help but snatch it back up and re-read the stories. I was especially interested in revisiting this now that I've been working on my own storytelling. I seem to be edging towards southern versions of tales, and there were three in particular that were very interesting: Tailypo (of course), The Witch Cat, and Scared to Death.
Short summary and thoughts on each "shivery" in the collection:
1) The Robber Bridegroom, from the Brothers Grimm.
A classic fairy tale set-up with a greedy merchant and a lovely, clever, and resourceful daughter who rescues herself and an old crone from being sold into marriage slavery to a sadistic robber.
Some interesting modern parallels here with the recent high-profile long-term kidnapping cases, and to the Boko Haram / ISIS focus on terrorism through sexual slavery. Some nasty things in the world, but they aren't new things.
2) Jack Frost, from the Russian folklore tradition.
Another classic fairy tale. A mother with a daughter and step-daughter, of course the step-child is the good one who is despised and ill-treated. Mother sends her out into the harsh Russian winter to freeze, but the girl is so good and sweet that even cold-hearted Jack Frost is touched, and gifts her with furs and diamonds. Mom sends the sulky real daughter out to get her own share, but the girl can't resist being a snot, and is frozen to death by morning.
Love the parallels here with Diamonds and Toads, and the faint feel of Vasilisa and Baba Yaga stories. There are some interesting links possible with this story.
3) The Waterfall of Ghosts, from a Japanese folktale.
This one was interesting, because it was mainly women characters. A group of weavers in a town below a haunted waterfall sit up late one night talking boasts, and one girl gets carried away, boasting that she'll travel to the shrine at the base of the waterfall and back that very night, and bring the donation box back with her as proof. The other girls all pledge their day's weaving if she does. She travels out, but is overcome by greed and steals the coins from the box, bringing a nearly-empty box back to the others and bemoaning the sad state of charity in the world. Later that night, she's hunted down by the ghosts of the waterfall, and returns the money to the shrine, along with all her winnings from her boast.
I was mainly interested that this story has the boastful claims entirely among women. Usually it's a group of men who are trying to one-up each other. This made for a nice change.
4) The Ghost's Cap, from a Russian ghost story.
Another boaster, but this one is a girl who is trying to show off for the boy she's after. She brags that she'll go to a haunted graveyard and return with the name of the ghost that people have seen there. She goes and scoffs at the ghost (believing it to be her boy) and snatches the cap from his head to take back as proof she went. She gathers her winnings, and tosses the nasty cap into the river. That night, she's visited by a presence wanting the cap back, but she hasn't got it. A sad ending for her, as the priest tries an exorcism, and the vengeful ghost takes the girl back with him, leaving nothing but her hair and jacket behind.
This one has fun shades of Tailypo there, and that Lovecraft story about the gem from the Dutch grave - in that losing the item the ghost wants dooms the person.
5) The Witch Cat, from Virginia, USA.
A widower and his young daughter go against local advice and settle in an abandoned farmstead next to a pond. The widower is soon courted by a willowy young lady from the plot next door, with bright green eyes and long sharp nails. His daughter is afraid of the lady, but the father is smitten, until the girl begins to take ill and complain of something stealing her breath at night. The farmer sits up one night to trap the intruder, and is shocked to chop the arm off of an enormous black cat creature. The next morning, the lady is also missing an arm, and the farmer finally figures it out. Too late for him, as the confrontation kills both him and the lady, leaving the daughter an orphan.
This one is great fun. The nice touch for me is the townspeople warning them away from the suspiciously empty homestead, without ever coming out and accusing anyone of anything.
6) The Green Mist, from Lincolnshire, England.
This is one of the only fae tales in the collection. I also know it as Crown of Cowslips. A village girl is very ill one winter, and is about to die, but she declares that if she could live "just one summer like the cowslips, she'd be content." Her mother hushes her quickly, but that night the healing spring "green mist" flows over the land and the girl recovers. That spring she is lively and happy, and falls in love as spring begins to mature into summer. Her lover spots the stand of cowslips beside the door and plucks them to make a summer crown for his love, but when she sees the cut flowers she shrieks and bars the door, leaving him alone and confused. She dies that night during the Summer festival.
There are a lot of things going on with this one. Firstly, the fae influence is slight but present. Her declaration is understood to be heard by a bogie and granted as an evil mischief. I'm also interested in the specificity that she's only to live as long as those specific cowslips (and why, if the mother was so worried about anyone messing with them, she didn't just put a sign up beside them). I also feel really bad for our unnamed suitor, who did everything right, and got shut out and abandoned at the end with no explanation. If I were telling, I think that would be the main thing that got changed, or I'd use it to start some sort of Orpheo & Eurycide sort of quest.
7) The Cegua, from Costa Rica.
A traveler-beware tale; a version of the nasty hitch-hiker. A young man is traveling late at night and sees a beautiful maiden by the side of the road. He offers her a ride, and she slowly morphs into a nightmare being with a skeletal horse's head and long talons. He's saved by arriving at the busy hacienda he was traveling to.
I always get a little grumpy about these - when the mysterious old man tells you at the cafe before your trip that seductive strangers are actually demon creatures, why would you then immediately let the sweet seductive girl onto your horse with you?
8) The Ghostly Little Girl, from gold-rush California.
A group of girls makes a new friend: a girl from the settlement of fishing shacks along the ocean. The girl is excited to be going to school with her new friends, but makes one last trip out with her father - and that night is a terrific storm, and they never come back. The girls worry about their new friend, and head down to the now-abandoned shack to see if they can find her - but find her waterlogged ghost instead.
Extra creepy because of the inclusion of grade-school kids for the cast-members. Love the morbid descriptions of the moldy old fishing shack and the wet slap of the ocean waves.
9) The Midnight Mass of the Dead, Norse folktale.
A very pious elderly lady attends mass every day, and is excited to attend the very first early Christmas mass, so she sets out her best clothes, and says a prayer for her best friend, who died earlier in the year. Awakened by a strange light, she fears she's late for church, and hurries to the chapel, where a strange priest and oddly-familiar parishioners fill the building. She's even more upset when the sermon and verses are all about death and punishment and hatred of the living. When she realizes that the only sound coming from the pews is from her, she realizes her mistake. Her newly-dead friend warns her to run before the service is over, but she is too slow, and loses her coat to the vengeful dead old neighbors as she flees. Returning to church the next morning, the shreds of her coat are too much to bear, and she flees once more.
The sweet dead friend giving her a warning was a nice touch, but I wanted to know why the dead are so unhappy on Christmas particularly, and why they were so evil and confrontational to begin with. There's also a sloppy bit at the ending where the wording is contradictory and confusing.
10) Tailypo, rural USA.
An old man lives in the woods with his hunting dogs, but he's been on lean times - nothing to hunt or fish for weeks. So when he spies a strange critter in his cabin and evicts it by hacking off it's long luxurious tale, he isn't too proud to stew that tail right up and eat it for dinner. That night he hears a whisper "where's my tailypo?" and he sends a dog out after it. The dog doesn't return, but the voice does. Next dog goes and fails to return, and the voice is soon back. Last dog is now in bed with him, but he sends it out and it's gone with a horrible yelp - and the voice is now inside, and now on the bed. He finally claims "I don't have your tailypo!" and the voice rejoins "Oh yes you have!" and eats him right up.
This one has been around for ages. It would be interesting to see if it could be linked up with some other tales and made longer or more elaborate without ruining the arc of the horror about the thing creeping up to exact revenge.
11) Lady Eleanor's Mantle, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
This one claims to be based on a true story. Lady Eleanor is from England, so she's miles better than any of the hick rube Americans in this stupid Boston town. She insists on wearing her fancy mantle from the continent, and likewise insists on scorning a young suitor who had followed her across the ocean. A ball was held in the Lady's honor to welcome her, and all noted her reserve and weary aspect, but also noted the beauty of the English mantle. Halfway through, the ball was cancelled abruptly, when the Lady's absence was noted. That next morning, the fearsome warning ran through the city - a smallpox outbreak, and the Lady's house was quarantined. The stinger has the young man braving disease to race to his Lady's side, where he finds a hideous pocked figure in her bed, and goes quite mad.
A very strange early entry in the world of medical suspense thrillers.
12) The Soldier and the Vampire, a folktale from Russia
Another traveler-beware tale like The Cegua, and a Clever-Jack sort of story. A Russian soldier is on leave to attend his sister's wedding, when he's warned about a wizard who recently died in a nearby village. He travels home without seeing anything amiss, until he reaches the house and discovers his sister, anemic and near death. The soldier, being a man of the world, knows that the wizard is using vampirism to steal the life from his sister and return from the dead. That just can't be allowed, so he races off in the night to find the wizard's grave and kill it for good. Along the road, he is joined by a silent figure, who he realizes is the evil one himself, and the soldier passes himself off as an apprentice wizard. They then walk and camp in companionable nature, until the wizard reveals that he was not taken in by the soldier's ruse, and they fight until dawn, when the evil one collapses, then morphs into a writhing mass of insects and grubs that the soldier has to individually exterminate to truly kill the monster.
Nice touch with the bugs at the end. Would have liked to get more than one sentence about the sister recovering.
13) The Skeleton's Dance, from Japan.
Two friends head off to the big city to make their fortunes. One works hard and becomes wealthy, while the other falls in with gamblers and druggies. They both decide to travel back to their hometown to get Mr Bad Life Choices away from his temptations, but BLC realizes he has a chance at a new life, and kills his friend in a mountain pass, then claims his friend's life as his own. After running through all his friend's money and accrued goodwill, he heads back to the city, and is accosted by his friend's bones laying in the path where he was killed so many months before. The bones rise up and offer to provide a means of easy employment - the bones will dance for free (needing no food or support) and the friend can collect easy money from people gawping at the spectacle. This works great for Mr BLC until he's famous enough to be hosted by the local lord, whereupon the skeleton fails to act, is abused, and finally calls BLC out on his treachery and murder.
A really nice and satisfactory delayed-justice story. Loved the way that BLC just walked right into his own doom and didn't see it coming, because he was too wrapped up in his own selfishness and feeling like everyone owed him.
14) Scared to Death, from Charleston, USA.
Another braggart tale. This one has a young debutante trying to steal a beau away from his current girlfriend, a shy and mousey girl. In an attempt to impress the young man, the young lady swears she'll go to a haunted grave in the nearby graveyard, and snatches the gentleman's walking stick to leave at the grave as proof. She heads out alone, makes it over to the grave, and slams the walking stick into the soft ground, but she's nervous and jittery in the spooky darkness. Her fears are realized when she tries to leave and she's held back by a mysterious unseen force. She freaks out, falls down, and is found dead the next morning, her cloak pinned to the ground by the walking stick she slammed down her own self.
This one also is nicely karmic - if you're going to be a snotty braggart, don't be stupid about it. It also has a nice common-sense touch to it. Everyone's had a not-so-proud moment when you worked yourself up or scared yourself about something that turned out to be completely harmless or normal.
15) Swallowed Alive, a British folktale.
A sneaky washerwoman is always around when things go missing, and she' accused by her neighbors of being a thief. She calls upon God and the Earth as her witnesses that she's an honest woman, even when she's pretty much caught in the act. The earth opens up like a whirlpool and sucks her in up to her waist, and the priest begs her to repent and be saved, but she insists that she's not a thief, whereupon the whirlpool sucks her entirely in, and subsequently spits back out the stolen items.
This one reads like the awful heavy-handed morality tales I got fed as a child from the Uncle Arthur books. Yikes.
16) The Deacon's Ghost, an Icelandic folktale.
A Deacon lived on one side of a fjord, and his love on the other. They fell in love one winter, and he promised to come back and fetch her for a wedding the next winter as soon as the fjord ices over again. Sadly, he's killed on his way back in a freak accident, and she doesn't know it. When he returns to fetch her, he acts strangely, but she's simply glad to see him again. They get to the church, but it's late at night, and he's not headed towards the church itself, but to the churchyard, where there's a single disturbed and empty grave! She fights free, and is guarded by the villagers every night from the undead lovesick deacon, until a priest from the closest city arrives to put him down for good.
This one was very sad. I felt sorry for the poor deacon and the poor girl who was left alone, and then frightened out of her wits afterwards. Sad ghost stories are harder, because they really drive home the utter unfairness of life and death.
17) Nuckelavee, from the Orkney Islands.
Short and shivery indeed. Nuckelavee is a weird cross between a kelpie and a demon, and it terrorizes the islanders, but is easily avoided by crossing fresh running water. This short bit tells of a local man's bad night when he found Nuckelavee coming towards him on a long empty road, with no running water nearby. A brazen approach, a quick sprint, and a tiny rivulet defeats the monster.
Not much too this one, but it's a fun little story that I can totally see a grizzled old man telling in a pub as a sort of "big fish" story.
18) Adventure of the German Student, Washington Irving.
Our German student has arrived in Paris to rid himself of a gloomy obsession; a demon is after his soul. Unfortunately, his timing isn't so hot, as he arrives just as Revolutionary fervor is hitting it's peak, and the smell of blood from the guillotines hangs heavy in the air. Understandably, his morbid fancies aren't much improved, and he hides out in his garret trying to avoid the masses of frenzied Parisians. He does have to head out for groceries, and tries to do so in the early mornings or late evenings when the streets are less crowded. One night walking home he spies a weeping lady on the steps of the guillotine. He rescues her and takes her home, and over the night falls in love with the wild young mourner. They pledge their hearts and souls, and he heads off the next morning without disturbing her to look for a bigger apartment. On his return, he finds her beheaded, and the officers confirm his worst fears - the lady was a victim of the guillotine the day before, and he's now pledged his everlasting soul to a dead woman walking.
This one needs a better name, to be honest. The French Lover would be at least slightly more descriptive. I love the association with a specific place and specific events, and the descriptions of the poor lady and the besotted (although not so bright) student are lively and morbid all at the same time. One of my favorites from the book.
19) Billy Moseby's Night Ride, from New England, USA.
Billy lives with his grandparents out on their rural farmstead, and everyone keeps clear of old Francis Woolcott - rumor is that he's a wizard. Billy is overcome with curiosity, and spies on the neighbor's bonfire one night, and is kidnapped on a wild ride through the countryside as the man releases spirits and hexes to torment his neighbors. When the night is over, Billy is encouraged to leave well enough alone, but now he's really inspired - he wants power like that himself. When he finally gets his courage up to go apprentice himself, he's too late. Woolcott is lying near death, and Billy watches helplessly as the demons that Woolcott worked with return in force to fetch his unwilling pitiful soul off to hell.
Another of the morality tale sort, but at least it has a younger protagonist, and an interesting look at the predjudices of old farm people. This one might be an interesting pairing with the Witch Cat - Woolcott and the cat lady would be an interesting pair.
20) The Hunter in the Haunted Forest, compiled from three Teton Sioux tales.
A brave hunter must venture into the haunted forest to feed his starving family, even though he knows that powerful spirits run rampant there, and have no love for the living. First he is overtaken by a powerful storm, and tries to shelter in a clearing, in a convenient teepee, but he overhears voices inside planning dark plots, and races away from them. When he camps deeper in the woods, and old man comes to his campfire, and reveals himself to be a ghost. The ghost offers a wager - if they wrestle and the hunter wins, he'll find plentiful game and a peaceful forest, but if the ghost wins, the hunter will be haunted and his whole family will die from hunger. The hunter wins (with a nice trick) and turns the ghostly old haunt into ashes, and then is delighted to find that the pact holds true, and the game is plentiful thereafter.
It's easy to tell that these are disconnected snippets, but I think that they all flow together decently well - they're more of a sequential narrative than a single arc, but they all hang together well, and give a nice picture of how frightening it must have been to be a hunter alone in the fall woods, knowing your skill is all that keeps your family alive.
21) Brother and Sister, a folktale found in Kenya, Zambia, and Malawi.
Another nasty-bridegroom story. A sister is promised in marriage to a man claiming to be from a rich neighboring tribe, but her brother is supicious of the strangely-acting man. He follows the wedded couple to the man's home, and quickly realizes it's a den of hyena demons. While the demon family is outside changing form, the boy races into the hut to warn his sister. They block the entrance to the enclosed yard with thorns, and barricade themselves in the hut, then as the demons continue to advance, escape out a window and into the nearby trees, where they flee frantically as the hyenas pursue them (destroying the trees as they go) until they reach a wide river. The bridegroom hyena continues to swim after them, even after the sun rises and he changes shape back to a man, but the siblings pelt him with rocks until he turns back.
A nice sibling story, but a little frustrating that all of the escape ideas are from the brother. Ah well.
22) The Lovers of Dismal Swamp, from Virginia, USA
A young pair of lovers lived on the edge of a swamp, until one day the young lady took sick and died. Her lover was utterly distraught, and refused to believe she was dead. As time went on, he began to obsess that she was alive, out in the swamp, and needed him to rescue her. He rushed out into the swamp one day, convinced that he saw her in the mist, with a lantern in her hand. He built a homemade raft and poled out towards her, and that was the last anyone saw him alive. Now hunters and fishers in that swamp claim you can see the duo poling a rickety raft along the waterways at dusk.
Short and shivery indeed - just over two pages long! The tone of this one is interesting, because there's no malice or evil ascribed to the boy or girl, even as ghosts.
23) Boneless, Shetland Isles.
Villagers were terrorized by a creature they called "Boneless" or simply "It" because no one could agree on what it looked like, or even what sort of thing it was. It gave off an aura of evil and terrorized households and farm animals simply by it's presence. One Christmas night, a farmer had enough. After a night of It bumping against his doors and scaring his cattle, he resolved to kill it for good. He raced out into the night and hurled an axe at it, killing it near the sea-cliff edge, and then burying it for good measure. That spring, a folklorist was curious about the legend, and learned where the burial spot was. He began to dig it up, until he noticed the "curdled light" and the milky fog seeping out of the hole. He ran for his life, and watched as It seeped out of the hole and headed towards the ocean. Two nights later, as he was wandering the cliff edges, he saw It in the water, long and stretched out, and formless. He turned to run, but it overtook him in an instant, and wrapped misty tentacles around him, dragging him over the edge of the cliff. He prayed desperately aloud, and the thing recoiled, took fire, released him, fell, and sizzled on the surface of the water below.
This sounds like a folktale that might have influenced Lovecraft back in the day. The insistence on the thing being unformed and indescribable, of strange oil-shimmer colors on white fish-belly hue, and the affinity to water - sounds like a baby shoggoth to me. The fact that a folklorist is the one to poke at it and get punished for his temerity is also very Lovecraftian.
24) The Death Waltz, New Mexico
Elizabeth was newly come to Fort Union, and she was a beauty from back East. Everyone adored her, and all the soldiers and ranchers courted her, but she was too good for any of them, and laughed at them. The handsomest and best social match was Frank Sutter, who was smitten with him. She was perfectly happy to be courted by such a fine officer, and when they had to leave on a raid and he asked her hand, she agreed - and upped the deal by promising that even if he died, she'd never wed another. Of course, the obvious happens. During the raid, someone saw him go down, but his body was never recovered. The fort gossips noted that Elizabeth didn't seem too perturbed by the death of her forever love, and tongues wagged even more harshly when she became engaged to a man from back East, who was leaving the fort to return there. At the wedding reception, the night turned stormy and wild, and the doors slammed open to reveal Sutter, muddy and corpselike, with terrible wounds all over his body. He grabbed the new bride from her husband, motioned to the band, and began a terrible waltz with her - by the end of it she was dead.
This was another of the ones I remembered from childhood, because I always thought the "bride" was a silly heartless thing to take advantage of someone and make stupid promises, especially to a soldier in wartime. Serves her right.
25) The Ghost of Misery Hill, California, USA.
Old Tom Bowers worked the mine on Misery Hill, until he passed away. He was an ornery and private man, and even after he passed, no one could bring themselves to jump his claim - even after death. That is, until Jim Brandon's debts got so bad he had no other choice. It started calmly enough, with him noticing that his tools and equipment were misplaced every morning. Then he started noticing someone using his sluice to pan gold. If that wasn't bad enough, then the notices started going up, claiming the mine in Tom Bower's name. Then he saw the ghost and his nerves vanished, and he shot it - which of course made Old Tom mighty unhappy, and the now-vengeful ghost came after Jim with his pickaxe. No one ever saw Jim again, but they did find his gun - pinned to the ground by a faintly-glowing pick driven straight through the barrel.
A good old wild-west gold-mining ghost story is such fun.
26) The Loup-Garou, a French-Canadian folktale.
Another short one, of the evil-thing-chasing-you-in-the-woods category. Pierre lives in a lovely cabin in the woods, and he and his wife are very happy there, until she gets sick and he has to ride through the woods after dark to fetch a doctor for her. He sets off, and while they're making good time at first, suddenly the horse slows down as if he's pulling a heavy load. Pierre looks behind him - straight into the eyes of an enormous wolf. Pierre freaks out, and he and the horse begin the run for their lives, but it's no use - the thing catches them. Pierre draws his knife and manages to draw blood before the wolf eviscerates him, and the loup-garou (as tradition dictates) is forced to change back into human form and flee. Pierre gets while the getting is good, and he and the doctor make sure to bring crosses with them as they pass through the woods on the return trip.
This one really isn't much, but the requirement to change to human and flee if blood is drawn is an interestingly specific limitation. I am very curious about that part.
27) The Golem, an original tale based on Jewish folklore.
A merchant learned of the mysteries of the golem, and hired a rabbi to create one for him. He immediately began abusing this perfect servant, treating it like the dirt it came from. But the golem kept growing, and it slowly got less obedient, and even began to act sullen and unhappy. The merchant refused to admit that he had a problem, and kept on abusing his magical servant, until one day he woke to find the golem systematically dismantling his house. He flees to the rabbi who teaches him how to destroy the golem, but when the merchant manages to do so, the golem collapses into a mass of inanimate clay that falls onto the merchant, crushing him to death.
LOVED this story, and the just desserts of the pompous asshole merchant who thought he had the perfect slave to abuse.
28) Lavender, raodsides, USA. (see also Seanan McGuire's Sparrow Hill Road's base ghost story)
Two guys were headed to the dance, and they see a pretty girl by the side of the road, dressed in a lavender party dress. They stop and pick her up, and one of the boys lends her his jacket. They have a great time at the dance, but when it's time to leave, the girl is distraught and demands to be let out on the side of the road, close to where they found her originally. The boys are convinced she was just "letting them down easy" because she didn't want to go steady with either of them, and they head down the dirt driveway to visit her the next day. The door is opened by an ancient woman, who weeps when she hears their story. Her little girl's favorite color was lavender, and she's been dead for nearly 50 years now - every spring she goes out to dance with the boys, and every time she almost gets back home before she fades away. The boys think this is a set-up or a trick and leave affronted, until they see the graveyard next door, with Lavender's gravestone draped with the letter jacket from last night draped over it.
Sweet and sad, and one of my favorite ghost stories. Love how it's so universally USA - it doesn't need a time or a place or any identifying details to be haunting and mystical.
29) The Goblin Spider, a legend from Japan.
Raiko, the famous samurai, is sent by the lord to kill a ferocious goblin that is shaped like a giant spider, and is terrorizing the countryside. On the way there, he is directed by the floating skull of a former victim of the spider. They find a deserted palace, inhabited by a creepy bug like ancient crone. She warns them away, then shifts into a mist and sinks through the floor as a legion of demons attack the samurai and his companion. They fight for hours, until the sun begins to rise, and the demons vanish. Then a beautiful pale maiden appears, but blinds them with unwholesome light, and shapeshifts into a creepy elongated monstrosity that oozes sticky white threads. She also changes to mist and seeps into the floor, and the samurai realize that she bleeds white sticky blood. The sun has fully risen, and now the samurai realize that there is a cavern or hollow beneath the flagstones. They pull them up, angering the mighty spider (who was the hag, and then the fair maiden) who attacks them brutally. The samurai fight valiantly, and finally slay the hellish spider beast, and take it's head back to court for their rewards.
Ew. Spiders.
30) The Halloween Pony, a folktale from France.
Grandmother warned the boys to stay inside on Halloween night, but the lively lads are determined to have some fun. They run out and find a neighbor's pony has gotten loose from it's pen. They all pile on, and strangely, even 4, 5, 6 and more boys seem to fit comfortably on the small pony. The pony doesn't even seem to mind the weight, and frolics and cavorts around, until he reaches the seaside, and the boys try to slow it down. It refuses, and they then try to dismount, but they're stuck. The boys can do nothing but watch in terror as the pony descends into the sea, and none of the village boys who were out that night were ever found.
So, the French version of kelpies, essentially. Plus a little morality guilt laid in on top.
I would have preferred this collection to stop at 28, and just skipped the spider and the silly morals, and ended on a high note with Lavender. Ahh well.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Classic SF: Power Play, Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Power Play
Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
ISBN: 0345388267
Read January 28, 2015
Third (final) book of the Petaybee trilogy (Powers that Be, Power Lines)
Oof. The well water gets a bit gritty towards the bottom. Overall storyline concludes nicely - the assholes from the two previous books hire a notorious space pirate to kidnap Yana, Marmion, Diego, and Bunny. Meanwhile, the planet and the people on the surface (mainly Sean, Johnny, and 'Cita/Aoife/Goat-Dung/Youngling) repel invaders intent on despoiling the ample hunting grounds and medicinal biota of the planet.
Plot-devices that were faintly apparent and easy to overlook in the first books got much worse: the slang is dated and ill-used, the language (especially dialogue) is stilted and ridiculous, and situations are obviously contrived for effect rather than sense.
Despite that, and the many eye-rolls and sighs, I did enjoy reading it, and I'm glad I finished off the set. Namid especially is a good character, and it was nice to see the religious supplicants actually being useful characters (although we never find out what happens with "Brother Granite" who isn't who he appears to be).
Also, with the epilogue, can we stop with the fantasy of women giving birth with no pain and it being a magical dreamy perfect experience that ends with them immediately rising from the birthing pool looking "flat-bellied and lithe again"? Seriously? It's patronizing.
Third (final) book of the Petaybee trilogy (Powers that Be, Power Lines)
Oof. The well water gets a bit gritty towards the bottom. Overall storyline concludes nicely - the assholes from the two previous books hire a notorious space pirate to kidnap Yana, Marmion, Diego, and Bunny. Meanwhile, the planet and the people on the surface (mainly Sean, Johnny, and 'Cita/Aoife/Goat-Dung/Youngling) repel invaders intent on despoiling the ample hunting grounds and medicinal biota of the planet.
Plot-devices that were faintly apparent and easy to overlook in the first books got much worse: the slang is dated and ill-used, the language (especially dialogue) is stilted and ridiculous, and situations are obviously contrived for effect rather than sense.
Despite that, and the many eye-rolls and sighs, I did enjoy reading it, and I'm glad I finished off the set. Namid especially is a good character, and it was nice to see the religious supplicants actually being useful characters (although we never find out what happens with "Brother Granite" who isn't who he appears to be).
Also, with the epilogue, can we stop with the fantasy of women giving birth with no pain and it being a magical dreamy perfect experience that ends with them immediately rising from the birthing pool looking "flat-bellied and lithe again"? Seriously? It's patronizing.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Classic SF: Power Lines, Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Power Lines
Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
ISBN: 0345387805
Read January 21, 2015
Second book of the Petaybee trilogy (Powers that Be, Power Play)
Book two of the set was as interesting, perhaps more-so than the first, but suffered from un-wrapped threads at the ending, especially regarding Shush.
Petaybee has just forced a confrontation with Intergal, and they've sent a duo of company execs to determine the best course of action to continue making money from the planet. The lady capitalist Marmion is our added protagonist, along with Goat-Dung (good grief) and Coaxtl on the planetary side. Our new antagonists appear in the form of the "ethnographer" Matthew Luzon, and the continuing obstruction of Torkel Whittaker from the first book.
The planet is melting, the growing season is either early or the climate is shifting, and Intergal is desperate to find pockets of colonists who don't believe Petaybee is a benevolent sentient being (since finding anyone who doesn't believe that it's sentient at all is a bust) and Luzon is off to the southern continent to find them.
There are missing siblings, miraculous rescues, pointedly-useful biota, and general asshattery from the corporation. I thought the pacing was better, and the variety of cultures and attitudes was refreshing, but at the end, there were too many strings to tie up, and some were left to hang, or were tied up in ways that don't make sense even by the very loose plotting standard set by the rest of the book.
Still, fun to read. I'm going to try the last, just so I can say I finished the trilogy.
Second book of the Petaybee trilogy (Powers that Be, Power Play)
Book two of the set was as interesting, perhaps more-so than the first, but suffered from un-wrapped threads at the ending, especially regarding Shush.
Petaybee has just forced a confrontation with Intergal, and they've sent a duo of company execs to determine the best course of action to continue making money from the planet. The lady capitalist Marmion is our added protagonist, along with Goat-Dung (good grief) and Coaxtl on the planetary side. Our new antagonists appear in the form of the "ethnographer" Matthew Luzon, and the continuing obstruction of Torkel Whittaker from the first book.
The planet is melting, the growing season is either early or the climate is shifting, and Intergal is desperate to find pockets of colonists who don't believe Petaybee is a benevolent sentient being (since finding anyone who doesn't believe that it's sentient at all is a bust) and Luzon is off to the southern continent to find them.
There are missing siblings, miraculous rescues, pointedly-useful biota, and general asshattery from the corporation. I thought the pacing was better, and the variety of cultures and attitudes was refreshing, but at the end, there were too many strings to tie up, and some were left to hang, or were tied up in ways that don't make sense even by the very loose plotting standard set by the rest of the book.
Still, fun to read. I'm going to try the last, just so I can say I finished the trilogy.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Classic SF: Powers that Be, Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Powers that Be
Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
ISBN: 078572852X
Read January 16, 2015
First book of the Petaybee trilogy (Power Lines and Power Play)
Really more Science Fantasy than SF, this is very much like Pern in that "psy" type abilities and planetary sentience are treated as having equal possibility with space travel and terraforming.
Most extra-Solar work these days is done by Intergal, a massive company that discovers, colonizes, and exploits the resources of planets across the galaxy. Our hero is an ex-company soldier, who was injured during a "terrorist attack" on a remote colony world.
Now she's sent to Petaybee, a small rural, backwards ice-ball of a planet, to live out her last few years on the company's dime before her injury does her in. Except, now that she's here, would she mind horribly integrating with the locals (a bizarro mix of Inuit and Irish cultures) and spying on them because they keep obstructing company efforts to locate and mine the planet's valuable resources? If so, she'll find that her pension is increased, and she'll get access to the company base, rather than the useless empty company store meant for the locals.
Now, she's stuck between loyalty to her employer, and a growing sense of unease that the company is about to commit a terrible moral offense against a sentient mind.
I enjoyed it enough to pick up the next, but it was a bit weak in places. It's fairly obvious that the weird Irish/Inuit blend was the reason for the story, and everything else was sketched in to support that odd premise. The company goons are company goons, the locals are nearly all wonderful people, and the "powers" of the planet and the genetically-altered (good lord the dithering about with genetic manipulation and genetic alteration and adaptations was enough to drive one nuts) residents were even more thinly-related to actual science than the magic dragons of the Pern books.
Fun to read for the history lesson, and to see how far the genre has come; I'm reading Ancillary Justice at the same time, and the contrast is mind-blowing.
Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
ISBN: 078572852X
Read January 16, 2015
First book of the Petaybee trilogy (Power Lines and Power Play)
Really more Science Fantasy than SF, this is very much like Pern in that "psy" type abilities and planetary sentience are treated as having equal possibility with space travel and terraforming.
Most extra-Solar work these days is done by Intergal, a massive company that discovers, colonizes, and exploits the resources of planets across the galaxy. Our hero is an ex-company soldier, who was injured during a "terrorist attack" on a remote colony world.
Now she's sent to Petaybee, a small rural, backwards ice-ball of a planet, to live out her last few years on the company's dime before her injury does her in. Except, now that she's here, would she mind horribly integrating with the locals (a bizarro mix of Inuit and Irish cultures) and spying on them because they keep obstructing company efforts to locate and mine the planet's valuable resources? If so, she'll find that her pension is increased, and she'll get access to the company base, rather than the useless empty company store meant for the locals.
Now, she's stuck between loyalty to her employer, and a growing sense of unease that the company is about to commit a terrible moral offense against a sentient mind.
I enjoyed it enough to pick up the next, but it was a bit weak in places. It's fairly obvious that the weird Irish/Inuit blend was the reason for the story, and everything else was sketched in to support that odd premise. The company goons are company goons, the locals are nearly all wonderful people, and the "powers" of the planet and the genetically-altered (good lord the dithering about with genetic manipulation and genetic alteration and adaptations was enough to drive one nuts) residents were even more thinly-related to actual science than the magic dragons of the Pern books.
Fun to read for the history lesson, and to see how far the genre has come; I'm reading Ancillary Justice at the same time, and the contrast is mind-blowing.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Beautiful Old Fairy Tales: A Book of Fairy Tales, by Dean's Publishing
I mentioned this recently in my post about The White Cat, and as I remembered the story from my childhood, I had to go hunt down the actual book so I could look at the illustrations again. It just came in, and it's so pretty. I remember so many of the stories inside, and how they were just gently strange and odd - not all of them the usual ones that appear in collections.
A Book of Fairy Tales
illustrated by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone
published by Playmore Inc in New York, and Dean & Son in London (hardcover, 1977)
Originally published as the following individual books:
Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
Janet and Anne Grahame-Johnstone Gift Book of Fairy Tales
Gift Book of Fairy Tales
The White Cat
Stories included:
Little Red Riding Hood
Old Mother Goose Rhyme
Hop O' My Thumb
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Three Little Pigs
Rumpelstiltskin
Jack and the Beanstalk
The Frog Prince
The Princess and the Pea
The White Cat
Little Ida's Flowers
Ole Luckoie, or The Dustman
Thumbelina
The Top and the Ball
The Darning Needle
Blockhead Hans
Sleeping Beauty
Puss in Boots
Tom Thumb
Hansel and Gretel
Beauty and the Beast
Babes in the Wood
They're so pretty.
What I remembered:
Ole Luckoie (Sandman) who tells the boy seven stories for seven nights, and on the last night, shows off his beautiful brother Death on his beautiful horse, where the good hear lovely stories in front of him, and the bad hear terrible tales behind his back, shrouded in his cloak.
The Princess and the Pea, standing in the rain, all soaked and black-haired and beautifully drapey.
The White Cat sequence where the Cavalier-dressed rain-soaked Prince draggles his pathetic way through the woods, to the doorway with the bellpull "hanging by a chain of diamonds," and then enters (dripping) into a blazing gold corridor illuminated by ghostly hands in sconces holding torches. (Really makes me wonder if whoever did the Phantom of the Opera movie had seen this illustration)
The White Cat and her retinue riding on monkeys.
The little fairy page boy giving serious side-eye to the goblin page boy with the Wicked Fairy, while the Fairy curses the baby Sleeping Beauty.
Blockhead Hans riding a goat, throwing mud at a reporter, while the Princess claps in delight.
Serious waif-fu Gretel kicking ass and taking names.
A sinister and dramatic Rumplestiltskin dancing around his campfire.
A Book of Fairy Tales
illustrated by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone
published by Playmore Inc in New York, and Dean & Son in London (hardcover, 1977)
Originally published as the following individual books:
Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
Janet and Anne Grahame-Johnstone Gift Book of Fairy Tales
Gift Book of Fairy Tales
The White Cat
Stories included:
Little Red Riding Hood
Old Mother Goose Rhyme
Hop O' My Thumb
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Three Little Pigs
Rumpelstiltskin
Jack and the Beanstalk
The Frog Prince
The Princess and the Pea
The White Cat
Little Ida's Flowers
Ole Luckoie, or The Dustman
Thumbelina
The Top and the Ball
The Darning Needle
Blockhead Hans
Sleeping Beauty
Puss in Boots
Tom Thumb
Hansel and Gretel
Beauty and the Beast
Babes in the Wood
They're so pretty.
What I remembered:
Ole Luckoie (Sandman) who tells the boy seven stories for seven nights, and on the last night, shows off his beautiful brother Death on his beautiful horse, where the good hear lovely stories in front of him, and the bad hear terrible tales behind his back, shrouded in his cloak.
The Princess and the Pea, standing in the rain, all soaked and black-haired and beautifully drapey.
The White Cat sequence where the Cavalier-dressed rain-soaked Prince draggles his pathetic way through the woods, to the doorway with the bellpull "hanging by a chain of diamonds," and then enters (dripping) into a blazing gold corridor illuminated by ghostly hands in sconces holding torches. (Really makes me wonder if whoever did the Phantom of the Opera movie had seen this illustration)
The White Cat and her retinue riding on monkeys.
The little fairy page boy giving serious side-eye to the goblin page boy with the Wicked Fairy, while the Fairy curses the baby Sleeping Beauty.
Blockhead Hans riding a goat, throwing mud at a reporter, while the Princess claps in delight.
Serious waif-fu Gretel kicking ass and taking names.
A sinister and dramatic Rumplestiltskin dancing around his campfire.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Listening for Lions, Gloria Whelan
Another middle grade orphan story, but this one's set a bit later than Victorian times, and is half set in Africa, and half in London. This is one of those books that feels like it should be a classic written a long time ago, but no - it's actually fairly new, written in 2005.
Listening for Lions
Gloria Whelan
ISBN: 9780060581763
Read May 13, 2014
Rachel Sheridan is the daughter of missionary doctors sent to colonial Africa, and grows up among the Masai and the Kikuyu, learning Swahili and helping out in the rural hospital and the makeshift chapel. The influenza epidemic is growing closer, and (as these sorts of orphan stories often go, and sadly - as doctors in early times often did) her parents succumb to the dread disease while trying to save others.
The interesting twist is that Rachel shares a single trait with a neighbor - a wealthy plantation girl. Valerie Pritchard is a cipher, she's introduced and then dies almost instantly. The twist comes in the bright red hair that both girls share. With Rachel's parents newly dead, and the Pritchard's daughter likewise deceased, the nasty couple instantly ensnare the innocent missionary girl and make her part of their plot to wheedle and beguile a distant, England-dwelling Grandfather into passing on his inheritance to the Pritchards.
I have to say, these two are the most pathetic villains I have ever seen. They are worse even than the De Villes in the book version of 101 Dalmations. NOTHING they want to accomplish actually works, and they are so evil in such a pathetic venal grasping miserly sort of villany, that one almost feels sorry for them.
Obviously, good prevails, and unlike Peppermints, there are adults with functioning brains. Rachel and Grandfather triumph, and Rachel begins a new chapter in her life, enriched by good friends and good English estate money.
I like that despite the fact that Rachel is a missionary girl, and that faith and religious practice is important to her personally, it doesn't play a huge part in the narrative - it's simply part of the background, like the lush vibrant descriptions of Africa, or the winding streets of London. I greatly appreciated that the morals were allowed to stand on their own without being belabored.
Listening for Lions
Gloria Whelan
ISBN: 9780060581763
Read May 13, 2014
Rachel Sheridan is the daughter of missionary doctors sent to colonial Africa, and grows up among the Masai and the Kikuyu, learning Swahili and helping out in the rural hospital and the makeshift chapel. The influenza epidemic is growing closer, and (as these sorts of orphan stories often go, and sadly - as doctors in early times often did) her parents succumb to the dread disease while trying to save others.
The interesting twist is that Rachel shares a single trait with a neighbor - a wealthy plantation girl. Valerie Pritchard is a cipher, she's introduced and then dies almost instantly. The twist comes in the bright red hair that both girls share. With Rachel's parents newly dead, and the Pritchard's daughter likewise deceased, the nasty couple instantly ensnare the innocent missionary girl and make her part of their plot to wheedle and beguile a distant, England-dwelling Grandfather into passing on his inheritance to the Pritchards.
I have to say, these two are the most pathetic villains I have ever seen. They are worse even than the De Villes in the book version of 101 Dalmations. NOTHING they want to accomplish actually works, and they are so evil in such a pathetic venal grasping miserly sort of villany, that one almost feels sorry for them.
Obviously, good prevails, and unlike Peppermints, there are adults with functioning brains. Rachel and Grandfather triumph, and Rachel begins a new chapter in her life, enriched by good friends and good English estate money.
I like that despite the fact that Rachel is a missionary girl, and that faith and religious practice is important to her personally, it doesn't play a huge part in the narrative - it's simply part of the background, like the lush vibrant descriptions of Africa, or the winding streets of London. I greatly appreciated that the morals were allowed to stand on their own without being belabored.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Picture Book: Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile Storybook Treasury by Bernard Waber
Lyle, Lyle Crocodile (50th Edition Storybook Treasury)
Bernard Waber
ISBN: 9780547516189
Contains the following four books:
The House on East 88th Street
Lyle, Lyle Crocodile
Lyle and the Birthday Party
Lyle Walks the Dogs
Finally - a classic children's book that I remember from childhood!
Anyway. I've loved Lyle forever. He's so sweet and funny shaped and bright green! These are the first four (I think) of the series, starting with the House on East 88th Street (featuring Hector P. Valenti, star of stage and screen!) and moving Lyle's sad tenure in the zoo (because of that mean old meany Loretta cat) his shenanigans at the birthday party that led to his hospitalization, and finally, his unfortunate dog-walking adventure (which is less of a story and more of a stretched counting rhyme, but it's Lyle, so really I'm not complaining too much here).
I didn't even know that there was a collected version until late last week, and I bought it on the spot. It's just as cute as I remember, although one tiny niggle that I didn't notice as a child was the emphasis on Lyle's being so "helpful" and doing lots of chores for the family, and how he always feels better after focusing on other people's needs (which is actually psychologically true, but somewhat problematic as a character trait if taken too far).
I dunno - I loved these as a kid, and I won't have any troubles reading them to my own, or having them read them to themselves, but I do think as an adult that Lyle is a bit more codependent than is really healthy. Although, if you're going to have a crocodile in a brownstone in a city, it's probably best to have a codependent one. Even if he is addicted to Turkish caviar.
Bernard Waber
ISBN: 9780547516189
Contains the following four books:
The House on East 88th Street
Lyle, Lyle Crocodile
Lyle and the Birthday Party
Lyle Walks the Dogs
Finally - a classic children's book that I remember from childhood!
Anyway. I've loved Lyle forever. He's so sweet and funny shaped and bright green! These are the first four (I think) of the series, starting with the House on East 88th Street (featuring Hector P. Valenti, star of stage and screen!) and moving Lyle's sad tenure in the zoo (because of that mean old meany Loretta cat) his shenanigans at the birthday party that led to his hospitalization, and finally, his unfortunate dog-walking adventure (which is less of a story and more of a stretched counting rhyme, but it's Lyle, so really I'm not complaining too much here).
I didn't even know that there was a collected version until late last week, and I bought it on the spot. It's just as cute as I remember, although one tiny niggle that I didn't notice as a child was the emphasis on Lyle's being so "helpful" and doing lots of chores for the family, and how he always feels better after focusing on other people's needs (which is actually psychologically true, but somewhat problematic as a character trait if taken too far).
I dunno - I loved these as a kid, and I won't have any troubles reading them to my own, or having them read them to themselves, but I do think as an adult that Lyle is a bit more codependent than is really healthy. Although, if you're going to have a crocodile in a brownstone in a city, it's probably best to have a codependent one. Even if he is addicted to Turkish caviar.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Andrew Henry's Meadow, Doris Burn
Andrew Henry's Meadow
Doris Burn
ISBN: 9780399256080
Read Feb 24, 2014
Another "classic" that I somehow never heard of. I know I read a lot as a child, but I'm beginning to think that I just read the same few approved Christian books over and over and over again. That and Childcraft and Disney storybooks.
This book is also a bit of an interesting case - apparently the original has much more intricate illustrations (which is frankly hard to believe given the ones seen in this edition) that were altered/zoomed in for the re-print. Regardless, they are still nifty, and have lots of nice pen-and-ink scratchy illustrated details for readers to pore over.
Andrew Henry is an inventor, and he's also a middle child - his older sisters don't really want to associate with him, and his little brothers are too little to really be interested in his inventions. So he runs away and creates a house for himself in a nearby meadow. What's really interesting is that like flies to a honeypot, a collection of neighbor kids begin arriving in the same meadow - girls and boys alike - united in their need to have a place of their own to engage with their hobbies and interests. Andrew Henry accomodates them all with a series of incredibly awesome personalized houses, and they live happily in their meadow for 4 days until their frantic families search them out and return them back home.
For Andrew Henry, his family gives him part of the basement for his workshop, and become much more invested in paying attention to him and his inventions.
(I would love to see a full-length children's novel or film written out that combines this and the picture book Roxaboxen, and Weslandia. It would be epic. Parents would freak, and kids everywhere would be so happy.
This book was recommended by The Read-Aloud Handbook
Doris Burn
ISBN: 9780399256080
Read Feb 24, 2014
Another "classic" that I somehow never heard of. I know I read a lot as a child, but I'm beginning to think that I just read the same few approved Christian books over and over and over again. That and Childcraft and Disney storybooks.
This book is also a bit of an interesting case - apparently the original has much more intricate illustrations (which is frankly hard to believe given the ones seen in this edition) that were altered/zoomed in for the re-print. Regardless, they are still nifty, and have lots of nice pen-and-ink scratchy illustrated details for readers to pore over.
Andrew Henry is an inventor, and he's also a middle child - his older sisters don't really want to associate with him, and his little brothers are too little to really be interested in his inventions. So he runs away and creates a house for himself in a nearby meadow. What's really interesting is that like flies to a honeypot, a collection of neighbor kids begin arriving in the same meadow - girls and boys alike - united in their need to have a place of their own to engage with their hobbies and interests. Andrew Henry accomodates them all with a series of incredibly awesome personalized houses, and they live happily in their meadow for 4 days until their frantic families search them out and return them back home.
For Andrew Henry, his family gives him part of the basement for his workshop, and become much more invested in paying attention to him and his inventions.
(I would love to see a full-length children's novel or film written out that combines this and the picture book Roxaboxen, and Weslandia. It would be epic. Parents would freak, and kids everywhere would be so happy.
This book was recommended by The Read-Aloud Handbook
Friday, January 3, 2014
Three Tales of My Father's Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannet
Three Tales of My Father's Dragon (50th anniversary hardcover edition)
Ruth Stiles Gannet, illustrated by Ruth Chrisman Gannet
ISBN: 0679887116
Re-Read: December 30, 2013 - January 3, 2014.
Juv: illustrated trio of stories about Elmer Elevator and his adventures with Boris the blue-and-yellow striped baby dragon. The first was written and illustrated as a family project, and published in 1948 to instant acclaim.
I remember these so fondly from childhood. The tangerines, the sticks of chewing gum, the very carefully crafted lists of everything from knapsack provisions to hidden treasure contents. And of course the elderly stray cat, the baby dragon, and Elmer himself, totally willing to rise to any occasion as long as he's had a bit of time to think through a plan.
The first story is the classic, the one most people will remember, where Elmer ventures to Wild Island and braves everything from boars to rhinos to crocodiles with wit, chewing gum, toothpaste, and lollipops, on his mission to rescue a mistreated baby dragon who is chained to a river crossing.
The second story chronicles Elmer and the Baby Dragon's journey to bring Elmer back home in time for his father's birthday, with their stopover at the Island of Escaped Canaries, where King Can the XI, and all the other canaries, are dying (albeit very slowly) of curiousity because the King won't tell his deep family secret about a long-hidden treasure.
Third story has Boris (the baby dragon now has a name) returning home to the Blueland Mountains after schlepping Elmer back home. Unfortunately, Boris arrives just in time to see his whole family (all 15 of them: 6 sisters, 7 brothers, and parents) besieged inside their cave home, trapped by a group of explorers determined to capture them and sell them off to zoos. Back to Elmer for assistance, and the two children sneakily and cleverly defeat the bad guys, leaving no one the wiser.
Delightful memories, delightful stories, and the illustrations are just quirky and sweet enough to fit perfectly.
Ruth Stiles Gannet, illustrated by Ruth Chrisman Gannet
ISBN: 0679887116
Re-Read: December 30, 2013 - January 3, 2014.
Juv: illustrated trio of stories about Elmer Elevator and his adventures with Boris the blue-and-yellow striped baby dragon. The first was written and illustrated as a family project, and published in 1948 to instant acclaim.
I remember these so fondly from childhood. The tangerines, the sticks of chewing gum, the very carefully crafted lists of everything from knapsack provisions to hidden treasure contents. And of course the elderly stray cat, the baby dragon, and Elmer himself, totally willing to rise to any occasion as long as he's had a bit of time to think through a plan.
The first story is the classic, the one most people will remember, where Elmer ventures to Wild Island and braves everything from boars to rhinos to crocodiles with wit, chewing gum, toothpaste, and lollipops, on his mission to rescue a mistreated baby dragon who is chained to a river crossing.
The second story chronicles Elmer and the Baby Dragon's journey to bring Elmer back home in time for his father's birthday, with their stopover at the Island of Escaped Canaries, where King Can the XI, and all the other canaries, are dying (albeit very slowly) of curiousity because the King won't tell his deep family secret about a long-hidden treasure.
Third story has Boris (the baby dragon now has a name) returning home to the Blueland Mountains after schlepping Elmer back home. Unfortunately, Boris arrives just in time to see his whole family (all 15 of them: 6 sisters, 7 brothers, and parents) besieged inside their cave home, trapped by a group of explorers determined to capture them and sell them off to zoos. Back to Elmer for assistance, and the two children sneakily and cleverly defeat the bad guys, leaving no one the wiser.
Delightful memories, delightful stories, and the illustrations are just quirky and sweet enough to fit perfectly.
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