Spellbound: Fantasy Stories
This collection of eighteen stories introduces young readers to the best in both classic and contemporary fantasy. Featuring extracts from enduring classics such as Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling, C. S. Lewis's The Silver Chair, and Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, this anthology provides the perfect sample of a very popular genre. Carefully selected by Diana Wynne Jones, each story is sure to delight, enchant, and entice youngsters into the imaginative world of fantasy fiction.
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This collection of eighteen stories introduces young readers to the best in both classic and contemporary fantasy. Featuring extracts from enduring classics such as Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling, C. S. Lewis's The Silver Chair, and Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, this anthology provides the perfect sample of a very popular genre. Carefully selected by Diana Wynne Jones, each story is sure to delight, enchant, and entice youngsters into the imaginative world of fantasy fiction.Children's LiteratureAGERANGE: Ages 10 up. As only to be expected, Diana Wynne Jones--an amazing fantasy writer in her own right--has created an amazingly thoughtful and intelligent introductory anthology of fantasy works for younger and older readers alike. This is no quickie collection of sponsored stories. Instead, Wynne Jones takes the book's lucky reader through a panoply of classics, from one of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales, through L. Frank Baum's World of Oz, to Tove Jansson's Moomintrolls, to E. Nesbit's imaginative Edwardian children, and much more. We are reminded that Rudyard Kipling toyed with time travel (in Puck of Pook's Hill), that Joan Aiken was always good for a Gothic shiver, and that Eva Ibbotson's absurd witches still bring on laughter. When excerpted from longer works, Wynne Jones prefaces her selections with a brief plot summary. One's only wish for this very welcome reprint is that she might have also added a brief biographical sketch for each entry. Reviewer: Kathleen Karr
Chapter One\ when he saw a heap of burning coals in the middle of his field, and when, full of astonishment, he went up to it, a little black devil was sitting on the live coals.\ "Do you sit upon a treasure?" inquired the peasant.\ "Yes, in trust," replied the Devil, "on a treasure that contains more gold and silver than you have ever seen in your life!"\ "The treasure lies in my field and belongs to me," said the peasant.\ "It is yours," answered the Devil, "if you will for two years give me half of everything that your field produces. Money I have enough of, but I have a desire for the fruit of the earth."\ "In order, however, that no dispute may arise about the division," said he, "everything that is below ground shall belong to you and what is above the earth to me."\ "You have had the best of it for once," said the Devil, "but the next time that won't do. What grows aboveground shall be yours, and what is under it,\ mine."\ "I am willing," replied the peasant.\ "That is the way to cheat the Devil," said the peasant, and he went and fetched away the treasure.
\ Children's LiteratureAGERANGE: Ages 10 up. \ As only to be expected, Diana Wynne Jones--an amazing fantasy writer in her own right--has created an amazingly thoughtful and intelligent introductory anthology of fantasy works for younger and older readers alike. This is no quickie collection of sponsored stories. Instead, Wynne Jones takes the book's lucky reader through a panoply of classics, from one of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales, through L. Frank Baum's World of Oz, to Tove Jansson's Moomintrolls, to E. Nesbit's imaginative Edwardian children, and much more. We are reminded that Rudyard Kipling toyed with time travel (in Puck of Pook's Hill), that Joan Aiken was always good for a Gothic shiver, and that Eva Ibbotson's absurd witches still bring on laughter. When excerpted from longer works, Wynne Jones prefaces her selections with a brief plot summary. One's only wish for this very welcome reprint is that she might have also added a brief biographical sketch for each entry. Reviewer: Kathleen Karr\ \ \
