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A review by battykat08
Over the Rainbow: Tales of Fantasy and Imagination by Mary Norton, Alan Garner, Ursula K. Le Guin, Eric Linklater, Hugh Lofting, L. Frank Baum, Washington Irving, Ruth Ainsworth, E. Nesbit, Norton Juster, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Joan Aiken, Helen Cresswell, Lewis Carroll, H.G. Wells
2.0
This book really frustrated me. Some of the stories are quite good, but few of them are standalone tales; instead, they are single (and sometimes SO ill-chosen) chapters from works by well-known authors. Of the 16 entries in the collection, only 5 were not excerpts of other stories. Nearly all of the original books would rate 4 or 5 stars, but these disembodied snippets from them do not. This was saved from a 1-star rating because I already love so many of the included authors, and was introduced to a few that I really liked.
This collection should have been clearly titled as a sampler or somehow indicated that it wasn’t an anthology of individual stories; there’s no introduction, foreword, or preface to clue you in, and the page headers name the chapter titles rather than the original books they come from. Only the table of contents notes which are excerpts.
I know I wouldn’t have enjoyed the chapters by Tolkien, Le Guin, C.S. Lewis, Baum, and Carroll all that much if I hadn’t already known and loved the books they came from, not to mention having the benefit of context. I liked most of the excerpts by authors new to me, but the inclusion of so many unfamiliar elements/characters without the explanations that would have been in the original stories (not to mention the arbitrary endings!) was extremely frustrating.
The best: I really liked the excerpts by Mary Norton and Alan Garner, and want to read more from them. Of the complete stories, I especially liked “The White-haired Children;” it was haunting and lovely.
The worst: “By Caldron Pool” from C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle—It started with a lot of unpleasantness, got even worse, and finally ended on a truly awful note with no resolution whatsoever. The worst choice for an excerpt I’ve ever seen. It upset me so much that even as a Narnia fan, I wish I hadn’t read it at all.
This collection should have been clearly titled as a sampler or somehow indicated that it wasn’t an anthology of individual stories; there’s no introduction, foreword, or preface to clue you in, and the page headers name the chapter titles rather than the original books they come from. Only the table of contents notes which are excerpts.
I know I wouldn’t have enjoyed the chapters by Tolkien, Le Guin, C.S. Lewis, Baum, and Carroll all that much if I hadn’t already known and loved the books they came from, not to mention having the benefit of context. I liked most of the excerpts by authors new to me, but the inclusion of so many unfamiliar elements/characters without the explanations that would have been in the original stories (not to mention the arbitrary endings!) was extremely frustrating.
The best: I really liked the excerpts by Mary Norton and Alan Garner, and want to read more from them. Of the complete stories, I especially liked “The White-haired Children;” it was haunting and lovely.
The worst: “By Caldron Pool” from C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle—It started with a lot of unpleasantness, got even worse, and finally ended on a truly awful note with no resolution whatsoever. The worst choice for an excerpt I’ve ever seen. It upset me so much that even as a Narnia fan, I wish I hadn’t read it at all.