John Gardner Again

Dragon, Dragon and Other Tales (Illustrated by Charles Shields), The King of the Hummingbirds and Other Tales (Illustrated by Michael Sporn), and Gudgekin the Thistle Girl and Other Tales (Illustrated by Michael Sporn), by John Gardner.

All three are Bantam Skylark books. Gardner’s metaphysical fairy tales for children, each cleverly disguising an interesting moral or philosophical lesson in settings that are a weaving of both the fantastic and the modern, with close attention to character development and a strong dash of humor to help it all go down. Not the best illustrations I’ve ever seen, but typical examples of their era.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Literary Fairy Tales. Collections. Softcover.

In the Suicide Mountains, by John Gardner. Illustrations by Joe Servello.

 “When I was in high school in the 70's I read Grendel and In The Suicide Mountains by John Gardner, and both books really spoke to me: Grendel because as a teenager I felt pretty monstrous and alone, and In The Suicide Mountains because I felt for the misfit trio of Chudu the Goat's Son, a dwarf afraid of his own power, Armida, an enormously strong blacksmith's daughter who has to pretend to be delicate to fit into society's expectations, and Prince Christopher the Sullen, a sensitive youth who would rather write poetry and play the violin than battle villains and dragons. The three had separately decided to end their dilemmas with suicide, and travel to the Suicide Mountains, where, in a monastery at the edge of the cliffs, the Abbot (who may be the notorious six-fingered man, the man no jail in the world can hold) offers them cogent reasons why suicide is no answer.” – Power of Babel. Contains within itself fine retellings of Russian fairy tales, in the guise of the Abbot’s stories.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Hardback.