Fantasy Stories

Spellbound is a selection of fantasy tales "chosen by Diana" that I picked up a couple of years ago simply because her name was on it. With eighteen short stories or excerpts of books from Rudyard Kipling, Eva Ibbotson, L. Frank Baum, E. Nesbit, Tove Janssen, Patricia C. Wrede, Joan Aiken and more, these stories were apparently chosen by Diana as the best of fantasy (in her opinion, of course). Unfortunately, there is no foreword or afterword talking about why she chose these particular stories, although one gets the gist of it after a while. As you read, you start seeing echoes of Howl's Moving Castle and Castle in the Sky and The Ogre Downstairs and Witch's Business and so many more of her stories and you realize that Diana's broad show more selection of fantasy tales were all written because they were subjects and ideas that she loved. Diana's story in this collection, "What the Cat Told Me" seems to bear the seeds of Earwig and the Witch and I loved it.

I didn't think there was a dud in the bunch (well, maybe that one based on Spenser's The Faerie Queene) except for the poor production quality of the book. It has a gorgeous cover and nice paper and, well, extra sentences and also some missing ones. For some reason, in more than one place in the book, one or two sentences are repeated. It's confusing the first time it happens and annoying the next few times. As for the missing paragraph or possibly page, that was really unfortunate. If this book had better editing and an informative foreword, I would recommend it unreservedly. My TBR has once again grown by leaps and bounds. I finally found out who the Moomins are, I immediately wanted to re-read The Silver Chair, I decided on Which Witch? for my RIP read-aloud this year and I've lamented never reading Five Children and It.

There is one personal statement from Diana at the start of the excerpt from The Seven Towers by Patricia C. Wrede --

"I know it is annoying to be given only the start of a story, but it is a long book and I did want to introduce you to my favorite sorceress. Here she is at her most typical."

If that isn't reason enough to pick up Wrede's book immediately, I don't know what is.

So, if you want an insight into Diana's taste in fantasy (though you likely already know it from her own work) and don't mind some wonky editing, see if you can find a copy of this book.

http://webereading.com/2013/03/dwj-march-review-of-spellbound.html show less

A collection of selections from Jones's favorite fantasy stories. Nearly all of these are excerpts from much longer works, and the unfamiliarity works against their charm. The other big problem is that these are almost exclusively old stories, with all the accompanying gender essentialism and thoughtless orientalism (for example, the selection from Langley's [b:The Land of Green Ginger|1749940|The Land of Green Ginger|Noel Langley|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347956970s/1749940.jpg|1747725] features names like Sulkpot Ben Nagnag, Rubdub Ben Thud, Tintac Ping Foo, Kublai Snoo, and my personal favorite, Chu-Chin-Chow Laundry Man) and a very large helping of twee capitalization. The only story I really enjoyed was Jane show more Yolen's short story "Boris Chernevsky's Hands," in which a bad juggler tries to get adroit hands from Baba Yaga. show less

I enjoyed this book. It felt nostalgic having excerpts from books I loved as a child. It also had some stories I hadn't read before. There were a few stories I found a bit boring, and some I really liked. I would recommend this for any child interested in fantasy.

I think I requested this from interlibrary loan because of Wrede's contribution, which really entices me to find the full book. I was very disappointed in most of the other stories. Most were chapters from longer books written for middle school children, not adults, and I don't think many in the current generation would enjoy them. Adventure stories with children as main characters, with the author's being as creatively (but not necessarily interestingly) weird as they want.
I might give Kipling's "Puck of Pook Hill" a try, because the selection was historical fiction. Briggs & Langley at least wrote intelligently. Yolen's story was interesting but pointless. Aiken's short story was pretty good.

Very few of these selections were standalone short stories. Most were excerpts from books that DID NOT stand on their own very well. Taken out of context, only one of them made me at all interested in the longer story it belonged to.


Ps I've read and loved the Silver Chair but reading "the House of Harfang" chapter would not have inspired me to read it.

"What the Cat Told Me" by DWJ is one of her best but you can find it in other, better collections.

Very few of these selections were standalone short stories. Most were excerpts from books that DID NOT stand on their own very well. Taken out of context, only one of them made me at all interested in the longer story it belonged to.


Ps I've read and loved the Silver Chair but reading "the House of Harfang" chapter would not have inspired me to read it.

"What the Cat Told Me" by DWJ is one of her best but you can find it in other, better collections.

Lovely selection, but appallingly produced: page ends either duplicate content across pages or miss part paragraphs. Bad in an adult book; so much more annoying for younger readers.

The cover is gorgeous.