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More like folktale retellings (though these are not based on actual folktales) and far less edgy that Aiken's other work, this collection shows off the grace of her language and fertility of her imagination. Reading audience: pre-tweens. ( )

Beautiful, funny, entertaining fairy tales. And i really liked the illustrations by Pienkowski. ( )

Gentle, magical and utterly delightful! ( )

A 1001 CBYMRBYGU. When I picked up my copy of this book from the library, I was initially very disappointed to find that it was a collection of short stories. Then I started the book. Mercy. It was fantastic. Literally and metaphorically. Wonderfully written fantasies. There is one story about a man who saves the North Wind, who then rewards the man with a gift of a necklace of raindrops. Another is the tale of an old woman who accidentally baked a bit of sky in her pie. Yet another tells of three men who work in a train station where no trains ever stop. Fantastic.

“You may think it odd that there were three men to look after one tiny station, but the people who ran the railway knew that if you left two men together in a lonely place they would quarrel, but if you left three men, two of them could always grumble to each other about the third, and then they would be quite happy.”