The more I read by this author, the more “enchanted” I find myself. She has taken the traditional fairy tale format and tweaked it, even poking at the stereotypical and making it seem funny. You recall the review I wrote on “Dealing with Dragons” –I loved that book and will continue to snap up whatever else I find by the same author.
“Book of Enchantments” is a collection of short stories that take place in fantasy worlds in ages past as well as our own world in our own time. I’d like to share with you the highlights of some of my favorite stories in this compilation.
First is “Rikiki and the Wizard.” Rikiki is a blue chipmunk, and he is one of the gods of the world where the wizard lives. The wizard decides he needs to find a husband for his daughter, and Rikiki somehow ends up the most likely candidate, but he thinks a daughter is a kind of nut. He’s sort of nut-obsessed, you see,
In “The Princess, the Cat, and the Unicorn,” we see a beautiful princess and a unicorn help to break the spell that has been cast on the cat and return him to his natural state, that of a young man.
“The Lorelei” is a contemporary tale about a water spirit who lures young men into the ocean to meet their depths. A tour bus stops by the Lorelei’s cliff and the students get out to take a look, and one of them nearly doesn’t return.
Oh, and we mustn’t forget to mention the Frying Pan of Doom . . .
Each of the stories is told with wry wit, a tongue-in-cheek look at the old stories. You’ll enter a story thinking you know how it will turn out, only to find yourself delightfully wrong.
(This book was published in 1996 by Harcourt, Brace and Company.)
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