Category Archives: writing

The Monday Book: INSTEAD OF THREE WISHES by Megan Whalen Turner

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MEGAN WHALEN TURNER_0I read this book years ago as one of the judges for a storytelling magazine contest. Loved it then, loved it now, when it recently came through our shop.

Megan Whalen Turner wrote seven “fractured” fairy tales. I love twice-told tales, and slightly sarcastic senses of humor, so I ate this book with a spoon. In the title story,  a poor old elf in the modern world gets helped across the street by a girl he has to reward, but she is suspicious of his three-wishes offer. Things go from absurd to funny to sweet in this send-up of that age-old fairy tale motif.

My other favorite is “A Plague of Leprechauns,” when leprechaun-hunting turned tourism threatens the peace of an English village, until the pub owner and the guy who found the little green man in the first place get smart–and cynical. I love this one.

“Leroy Roachbane” is about the wonders of Borax in the ancient world. Time travel, local boy makes good; it’s fun.

My other favorite was “Factory” a rather amusing treatise on the practicality of being a ghost in an industrial society gone wrong. The humor Turner displays in this is wonderful. You have to realize, ghosts stay as they were when they died for eternity. The mom who’s plotting the death of her family is very worried about the fact that her two-year-old granddaughter has a cold. Which would be worse, she muses, to miss the moment and get evicted from their house before crossing over, or to spend eternity with a sick two-year-old? That kind of thing.

“Aunt Charlotte” is about a silkie with a seductive plan. “The Nightmare” will delight every child who’s ever been picked on by a bully (be advised one should not threaten little old ladies in the streets, boys). And “The Baker King” is a fun send-up of youthquests to become rulers.

I liked the stories for their simple, clear language and humor, and also because they exude warmth and compassion. Things work out right for the nice people. The supernatural characters are hysterical in their over-the-topness. The airhead tree nymph from Instead of Three Wishes is wonderful. And the humans are sweet, silly, charming, scary–real. This is intended to be a young adult read, but I’d recommend it for anyone who just wants an hour of escapism and a little faith in humanity restored. Leprechauns and elves can do that for you.

Hither and Thither and Whether the Weather

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Jack’s weekly guest blog on something all Scots know a great deal about– bad weather


The last few days have seen me driving around a fair bit and, since we’re in the season of changing weather, checking the forecast pretty regularly. About four or five years ago we had a devastating tornado roar through the town taking off roofs and throwing big trees around like matchsticks, so a tornado watch alert has become a bit more of a big scary thing for me. More recently Wendy almost got caught in a very bad one that roared through East Tennessee and up into Virginia killing many people and practically destroying a number of towns and communities.

News reports starting coming in of serious damage and multiple deaths over to the South West of us a few days ago with indications that those tornado bearing storms were heading our way. On Monday the first local warnings began to appear and I went into ‘check the interactive map’ mode. Sure enough – there it was – a big angry looking swatch of red and yellow heading straight for us!

But there’s something odd about the way we sit behind the Cumberland Mountains that seems to regularly affect what happens to storms as they approach us from that direction. This one did what many do and split into two halves just before it got here. All we got was a brief gust of wind, very dark cloudy sky and a short blast of rain and that was it. One half went North of us towards Norton and Wise and the other half went South towards Pennington Gap and Duffield.

Later on Monday I had to go to an event near Pennington Gap and saw downed trees, scattered branches and flooded fields.

In Scotland, where I lived most of my life, although the weather can be unpredictable it’s rarely extreme. It does have storms and frequent high winds but rarely anything that would be life threatening.

It’s tempting to think that we are seeing the effects of climate change but I haven’t lived here long enough to know what the typical weather pattern is in this part of the world so my jury has to be out on that.

There is one Scottish saying that seems appropriate however – Ne’er cast a cloot ’til May be oot (don’t divest yourself of any clothing until after the end of May)