The Chronicles of Harris Burdick

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick
by Chris Van Allsburg et al.

The chronicles of Harris Burdick are based on the 14 mysterious drawings, titles and captions supposedly left at a publisher’s home in the mid 1950′s.  Mr. Burdick brought them to a Mr. Peter Wenders, promising to bring the rest of the stories that went with the drawings the following day.  Burdick never returned and was never heard from again.  The art and quips were originally published in 1984 after Chris Van Allsburg first heard this story in The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.  Since then, these drawings have captured the imaginations of readers and writers everywhere.  These 14 chronicles, inspired by Burdick’s mysterious work, are written by some of the most prominent authors in fiction.

I had never heard of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick until I read a review for The Chronicles of Harris Burdick.  All the reviews I read raved.  Naturally intrigued, I checked both of them out.  There was reason to rave.  With just one brief sentence, the drawings (obviously the work of the Caldecott medalist Van Allsburg) invoke all kinds of emotions – hilarity, tragedy, horror, whimsy, and curiosity, just to name a few.  It is easy to see how you can’t not be inspired to write the rest of the untold story.  Like with any collection of short stories, there are those that make you wonder, “That was really the best you could do?” And then there are those that you want to reread again as soon as you’ve finished.  For very different reasons, those for me were the ones by Jon Scieszka (hilarity), Linda Sue Park (heartbreak), Walter Dean Myers (mystery), and Chris Van Allsburg (whimsy).

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

Amazing Cows: Udder Absurdity for Children

Amazing Cows: Udder Absurdity for Children
by Sandra Boynton

Everything you ever wanted to know about cows (even stuff you didn’t want to know) can be found right here in this one amazing compendium of cow lore and learning!  It’s all summed up on the cover: “Two cow stories!  Three cow poems!  Eleven or so cow jokes!  One cow myth!  One cow comic book!  Find the hidden cows!  Way too many unexplained chickens!  And so much mooer!”

Not sure what I was expecting with this one.  “Udder absurdity” is a pretty accurate description.  I’m mostly familiar with Boynton’s baby and toddler books – this is a cow of a different color.  Definitely for an older audience (4th grade-ish), it’s pure silliness.  Some of the wordplay is stretched, but that’s probably on purpose – this is supposed to be over the top.  The short story at the end is probably my favorite, although some of the jokes throughout also elicited some chuckles.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales

A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales
edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Really, I can’t describe this book more than the title does.  This is a collection of retold fairy tales.

I’ve been kind of on a fractured fairy tale kick lately.  I find them interesting.  Sometimes I learn about new fairy tales and folktales, and sometimes I remember ones I loved as a child, but had almost forgotten about.  It has taken me a long time to get through this little book of 13 short stories.  But I think that was my fault.  I started off trying to read them all at once and quickly got bored.  I finally finished it this week doing two or three stories at a time while I did my teeth whitening.  I enjoyed the latter experience much better.  Or maybe the stories at the end of the book are just better.  I don’t know.  I really enjoyed the first story, a take on “The Twelve Months,” a tale which I’ve only read once, and I liked this version of it better than the one I read.  I also really loved the retelling of some Portuguese folktales which I had never heard before about a lily and a hummingbird.  And there’s just enough gore to keep boys interested, too.  And the collection ended strongly with a retelling of my absolute favorite fairy tale from my Reader’s Digest collection growing up: “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”  Don’t know why I loved it, but I did.

So the moral of this story is I’m glad I stuck it through to the end.  I’m slowly learning how to read short stories.  Thank you for being patient as I figure this out.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Zombies vs. Unicorns

Zombies vs. Unicorns
edited by Justine Larbalestier (Team Zombie) and Holly Black (Team Unicorn)

So apparently since 2007, there has been this epic question boggling the minds of supernerds and geeks everywhere.  Which is better: zombies or unicorns?  In this collection of young adult short stories, teams of authors will try to convince you to join their side and give you snarky ammo to combat the other.  The editors have their minds made up.  Which side will you choose?

After Geektastic, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read more short stories.  It’s like a bunch of grapes – you never know which ones are going to be sweet and juicy, and which are going to be crap.  Going into this book, I was totally Team Unicorn.  I mean really, who would you rather spend more time with?  I’d much rather have a beautiful mythical creature hanging around than someone who wanted to eat my brains.  But as I read through, most of the unicorn stories didn’t do the animals justice.  Team Zombie puts up a good fight and has a lot of good writing on their side.  Favorites from Team Unicorn: “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn” and “Princess Prettypants.”  Favorites from Team Zombie: “The Children of the Revolution,” hands down.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd
edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

Geektastic is a celebration of all things nerdy.  What started out as “What if a Klingon and a Jedi fell in love in a Romeo and Juliet scenario?” has blossomed into a collection of short stories based on all facets of geekdom: MMORPGing, LARPing, ComicCons, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dungeons and Dragons, and many others (just look at the tags).  Many of today’s most popular YA authors make contributions to this book, and declare what facet of geekhood brought them to write their stories.  Interspersed between the stories are short comics illustrated by Bryan Lee O’Malley and Hope Larson, educating the reader on some of the finer points of geekiness.

I always thought I was pretty nerdy.  This book put me to shame.  There’s a lot about the world of geekiness that I haven’t even scratched.  I am okay with that.  However, I could relate to some of the topics discussed, but I won’t tell you which ones   I have a tough time reading collections of short stories because they are so different.  The elements that keep me engrossed in one story disappear in the next.  Some of these stories are light-hearted, while the darkness of others remind me of something that would form the background scenario for an episode of CSI (the Las Vegas one, of course).  This book is not for everyone, but chances are if you’re my friend, at least one of these stories will ring true for you.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com