Vratislav Stovicek

I got this book a long time ago because I had it as a kid and I wanted my kids to have it. There are 365 stories, one for each day of the year, although a lot of them are multi-parters, and each day is only about 250 words.

I have fond memories of this book, but on the re-read, it started becoming hard to get through. The stories I remember as a nine-year-old weren't as full of whimsy and wonder. The tales weren't diverse and magical. They started getting samey (right around August, I believe) and it's not as much a compendium of fairy tales as I thought. Some are downright strange. They're all deeply rooted in Eastern Europeanism. There are no paragraph breaks and little dialogue. I wonder if I returned to my nine-year-old self, reading this volume for the first time, I'd feel the same way. I don't know the answer to that, but I do understand now why my kids haven't cracked it open.… (mehr)