Tales from Outer Suburbia

These are the odd details of everyday suburban life that might forever go unnoticed, were they not finally brought to light by Shaun Tan. An exchange student who’s really an alien, a secret room that becomes the perfect place for a quick escape, a typical tale of grandfatherly exaggeration that is actually even more bizarre than he says… These are the odd details of everyday life that grow and take on an incredible life of their own in tales and illustrations.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2

Demons and Shadows: The Ghostly Best Stories of Robert Westall

Contains some of the author’s best ghostly tales, including “Rachel and the Angel,” “The Creatures in the House,” and the previously unpublished “Graveyard Shift.” By the author of The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral.

M Is For Magic

Stories to delight, enchant, and surprise you. Bestselling author and master storyteller Neil Gaiman here presents a breathtaking collection of tales that may chill or amuse readers—but always embrace the unexpected: A teenage boy who has trouble talking to girls finds himself at a rather unusual party. A sinister jack-in-the-box haunts the lives of the children who owned it. A boy raised in a graveyard makes a discovery and confronts the much more troubling world of the living. A stray cat fights a nightly battle to protect his adopted family from a terrible evil. These eleven stories illuminate the real and the fantastic, and will be welcomed with great joy by Neil Gaiman’s many fans as well as by readers coming to his work for the first time.

The Dandelion Garden

Ten stories that follow themes of life changes includes a girl discovery a painful secret about an older brother, a girl who falls in love with an older man, a character who realizes human potential, and more. By the author of The Leaving.

Kissing The Witch: Old Tales In New Skins

Cinderella forsakes the handsome prince and runs off with the fairy godmother; Beauty discovers the Beast behind the mask is not so very different from the face she sees in the mirror; Snow White is awakened from slumber by the bittersweet fruit of an unnamed desire. Acclaimed writer Emma Donoghue spins new tales out of old in a magical web of thirteen interconnected stories about power and transformation and choosing one’s own path in the world. In these fairy tales, women young and old tell their own stories of love and hate, honor and revenge, passion and deception. Using the intricate patterns and oral rhythms of traditional fairy tales, Emma Donoghue wraps age-old characters in a dazzling new skin.

Shades of Darkness: More of the Ghostly Best Stories

A companion volume to Demons and Shadows, this collection of eleven stories of the unexplained includes the tale of a nosy schoolgirl who helps a desperate ghost right a wrong and that of an antique camera that holds the clue to an old crime.

Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom

Kids of all ages are always asking Joe Hayes, “How can it snow tortillas?” Now they’ll know where to find the answer: at long last, Joe’s signature book The Day It Snowed Tortillas is appearing in a new bilingual edition. Bloomsbury Review listed the original English-only edition as one of their fifteen all-time favorite children’s books. This bilingual edition has all the original stories as they have evolved in the last twenty years of Joe’s storytelling. It also has new illustrations by award-winning artist Antonio Castro. Storytellers have been telling these stories in the villages of New Mexico since the Spanish first came to the New World over four hundred years ago, but Joe always adds his own nuances for modern audiences. The tales are full of magic and fun. In the title story, for instance, a clever woman saves her silly husband from a band of robbers. She makes the old man believe it snowed tortillas during the night! In another story, a young boy gladly gives up all of his wages for good advice. His parents think he is a fool, but the good advice leads to wealth and a royal marriage. The enchantment continues in story after story—a clever thief tricks a king for his kingdom and a prince finds his beloved in a house full of wicked step-sisters. And of course, we listen again to the ancient tale of the weeping woman, La Llorona, who still searches for her drowned children along the riverbanks.

Featured in Volume I, Issue 4 of WOW Review.

Big Bear’s Book

bearBig Bear tells the story of Christina’s ten teddy bears, since he’s the oldest and wisest, and remembers the time Christina broke her arm, her father’s bedtime stories, and the terrible teenage years when she almost forgot her bears.