Saturday, April 24, 2010

Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast by Jane Yolen

I recently found myself without any library books left unread. After my first panic attack, I remembered that I had books of my own and staggered over to the bookshelf, hands shaking, to find something to reread.

I found myself with Yolen's Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast. It's a lovely little collection with a range of moods and story types: "Tough Alice," my least favorite, is a morality tale that features some great, quirky moments in Wonderland--the puns almost make up for the rather heavy-handed moral at the end. "Mama Gone" is creepy, terrible, hopeful, and heart-warming all at once; "The Bridge's Complaint" is funny, "The Babysitter" chilling, "The Sea Dragon of Fife" heroic and human, and "Brandon and the Aliens" gross.

Additionally, the book has short notes from the author in the back discussing how the stories came to be written and what Yolen herself likes about each.

I enjoyed reading them and suspect they'd make great read-alouds as well.

In short, Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast is worth having on the shelf for those times when you need a quick story fix.

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