Monday, April 01, 2019

A Necklace of Raindrops and Other Stories

A Necklace of Raindrops and Other Stories. Joan Aiken. Illustrated by Jan Pienkowski. 1968. 108 pages. [Source: Bought]

First sentence: A man called Mr. Jones and his wife lived near the sea.

Premise/plot: A Necklace of Raindrops and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Joan Aiken. Most--if not all--of the stories have a fantastic fairy-tale feel to them. The stories include "A Necklace of Raindrops," "The Cat Sat on the Mat," "There's Some Sky In This Pie," "The Elves in the Shelves," "The Three Travellers," "The Baker's Cat,""A Bed for the Night," and "The Patchwork Quilt."

In "A Necklace of Raindrops," the North Wind becomes godfather to a newborn baby. He gifts her with a necklace of three raindrops. Each year on her birthday he visits her and gives another raindrop. Each year the necklace becomes more magical.

"The Three Travellers" stars three men who work for the Railway and live in the desert. One is a signalman, one is a ticket-collector, and the third is a porter. No one ever, ever, ever, ever stops at their station. Their lives are relatively boring...until....they decide to do something.

"The Patchwork Quilt" is a fun story about a grandmother making a magical quilt for her grandson.

My thoughts: I enjoyed this collection. Some stories I absolutely loved, loved, loved. Other stories I merely liked. But here's the thing--I don't usually like story collections at all. So the fact that I found stories that excited and thrilled me so much is really saying something. 

© 2019 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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