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A review by syebba
The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: 14 Amazing Authors Tell the Tales by Chris Van Allsburg
Important note about "The Chronicles of Harris Burdick": don't even try to read it beginning to end. As a book approached that way, it rather stinks. On the other hand, as a book of short stories, read over multiple sittings, multiple checkouts, I think it probably has a lot more potential/value.
The Introduction by Lemony Snicket is hilarious--really. All two pages of it make me want to go back and read the Series of Unfortunate Events. The dark tongue-in-cheek humor and speculation is a hoot.
Archie Smith, Boy Wonder by Tabitha King... I'm still not certain about the point of it. It seems like she took the challenge very literally: write a story with this title and use this line of text somewhere in it. OK, done and dusted, but it lacked almost everything else that would make it an interesting or quality short story.
Under the Rug by John Scieszka is absolute comic brilliance--the narrator recounts all the maxims his grandmother recites to him, one of them being not to sweep anything under the rug. He does, of course, and it grows and his grandmother's maxims become prophecies. Ultimately, "don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today" becomes the catalyst for the narrator feeding his grandmother to the thing that's growing under the rug. Dark? Yes. But way funny.
A Strange Day in July by Sherman Alexie was rather non-Alexie-esque, really. It is the story of fraternal brother/sister twins that are a little creepy and psychotic in their devotion to one another and then ultimately their "triplet"--the third that they will into being by carrying around an empty dress. Eventually, when they tire of their "sister," they try to drown her by throwing rocks on the dress in a lake. Being that this angers her, ultimately, she starts throwing rocks back and the nearly sociopathic twins are suddenly in danger and afraid realize all too late that they have screwed up.
Missing in Venice by Gregory Maguire is the story of a young boy left in the care of his golddigging stepmother when his father dies. While the child's grief is not immediate or dramatic, his dislike of his stepmother's attorney is palpable, as he reads the man for being a treasureseeker himself. While looking after himself, left to his own devices, he goes with an impulse to steal a ring that belongs to a woman closely associated with gingerbread. How it all comes together is vague, but the old woman, the stepmother and the boy end up in a gandola and the boy essentially wills back the ship that is leaving with the attorney, his family's jewels and the ring he took from the gingerbread woman. Venice literally bends around the ship, and the ship begins to shrink until ultimately it slides into a glass jar, taking the attorney with it. The jewels are returned to the stepmother, and the boy relinqueshes them to her willingly, having realized that he has considerably more power that he is able to wield.
Another Place, Another Time by Cory Doctorow
More to come when I pick up the book and read more of it. I think I will finish it at some point, but this is a collection best spread out over time.
The Introduction by Lemony Snicket is hilarious--really. All two pages of it make me want to go back and read the Series of Unfortunate Events. The dark tongue-in-cheek humor and speculation is a hoot.
Archie Smith, Boy Wonder by Tabitha King... I'm still not certain about the point of it. It seems like she took the challenge very literally: write a story with this title and use this line of text somewhere in it. OK, done and dusted, but it lacked almost everything else that would make it an interesting or quality short story.
Under the Rug by John Scieszka is absolute comic brilliance--the narrator recounts all the maxims his grandmother recites to him, one of them being not to sweep anything under the rug. He does, of course, and it grows and his grandmother's maxims become prophecies. Ultimately, "don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today" becomes the catalyst for the narrator feeding his grandmother to the thing that's growing under the rug. Dark? Yes. But way funny.
A Strange Day in July by Sherman Alexie was rather non-Alexie-esque, really. It is the story of fraternal brother/sister twins that are a little creepy and psychotic in their devotion to one another and then ultimately their "triplet"--the third that they will into being by carrying around an empty dress. Eventually, when they tire of their "sister," they try to drown her by throwing rocks on the dress in a lake. Being that this angers her, ultimately, she starts throwing rocks back and the nearly sociopathic twins are suddenly in danger and afraid realize all too late that they have screwed up.
Missing in Venice by Gregory Maguire is the story of a young boy left in the care of his golddigging stepmother when his father dies. While the child's grief is not immediate or dramatic, his dislike of his stepmother's attorney is palpable, as he reads the man for being a treasureseeker himself. While looking after himself, left to his own devices, he goes with an impulse to steal a ring that belongs to a woman closely associated with gingerbread. How it all comes together is vague, but the old woman, the stepmother and the boy end up in a gandola and the boy essentially wills back the ship that is leaving with the attorney, his family's jewels and the ring he took from the gingerbread woman. Venice literally bends around the ship, and the ship begins to shrink until ultimately it slides into a glass jar, taking the attorney with it. The jewels are returned to the stepmother, and the boy relinqueshes them to her willingly, having realized that he has considerably more power that he is able to wield.
Another Place, Another Time by Cory Doctorow
More to come when I pick up the book and read more of it. I think I will finish it at some point, but this is a collection best spread out over time.