Books Galore!

This being Thursday, the Official Day of Getting Nothing Done, I finished three non-work-related books.

Two of them were vintage children’s books passed along to me by a friend.  The Fairy Babies by Laura Rountree Smith follows the very small adventures of the Ink Pot Babies, of whom there are 25.  There are stories and poems embedded in the stories, many revolving around dwarves, fairies, and magical household objects.  The pictures are charming.

The Magic Umbrella by David Cory tells the tale of Jimmy and his adventure on the way to fetch his mother some groceries.  There are dwarves and princesses and gold and a cow transformed into a donkey.  Jimmy’s good nature gets him through every difficulty.  Again, the illustrations are sweet.

The third book was by Gregory Maguire.  It is called Hiddensee and takes the Nutcracker story as its jumping-off place.  What I like about Maguire’s work is that the deep stories of our culture are just the beginning.  He mines them for new and complicated truths, all while keeping the spirit of the story alive.  (If all you know is the musical version of Wicked, you really should look deeper; his work is much darker and more complex.) (I love the musical, by the way, but it is happier than the book it is based on…)  Hiddensee charts the unattainable island of childhood, more or less, with lovely prose and a good ear for the actual imaginations of children.  Thumbs up.

Current summer total:  17 books.