Storyteller (a review)

Storyteller by Edward Myers tells the tale of Jack the Storyteller as he grows up, finds his calling and leaves home to pursue his dream. Adventure ensues. The setting is a fictional small kingdom in the feudal European style --- there are elements of fantasy, such as talking birds and fish, but they are secondary to the ... er ... story. Which is a fairly nice one, all about the power of storytelling and staying true to your beliefs. There's a secondary theme about how a bad king can spoil a kingdom, but since we've more-or-less given up on the whole monarchy thing, this is not especially illuminating to today's youths. Speaking of which, audience-wise, I'm not much of a judge but I'm going to say tweens?

Servicable but not soaring language (though there are some nice bits of song and poetry) and more-or-less believable characters (though some of the situations are a bit of a stretch) mostly serve to support the author's interest in showing off an array of interesting story-telling in different contexts. And we should indulge him in this, since he does a quite enjoyable job of it. As I've mentioned, I'm also intruiged by the idea of storytelling-within-story, though I prefer to see the characters acting out the stories they make up, as in Swallows and Amazons, rather than simply relating the story.

All in all, a book and author I'll keep on my list, though not perhaps in the first circle.

letter home

There's a product called Big Top Cupcake which is a silicon mold for making party-sized "cupcakes" with filling in the center. Daughter asked for and got this for her birthday, and last week she and Son tried it out for the first time. On Friday she told me on the phone, "There's a surprise waiting for you!"

When I'm on the road (so to speak) I like to write a letter home to the kids, trying to be somewhat topical to their lives. I also try to give them a little something to figure out, as in this week's example: