The King with Horse's Ears by Batt Burns

The King with Horse's Ears and Other Irish Folktales by Batt Burns

Illustrated by Igor Oleynikov

Copyright 2009

Sterling - Children's fiction (ages 8-12)

96 pages, incl. glossary & sources

The first thing I noticed about this book, besides the beautiful illustrations, was the awesome smell. The King with Horse's Ears is printed on high-quality paper that I could sit and sniff all day. I wonder if you can be arrested for book-sniffing.

I handed the book to my 17-year-old on the day it arrived, after he returned from school. He stood in the doorway of our office, reading and grinning. I kid you not. He's since sneaked the book off to read a story, now and then, when he's been in the mood. Kiddo's opinion is that the stories are good, but some of them have "nyeh" endings and he likes his Norse mythology better than folk tales. But, in general, he really likes the book. He is kind of a mythology freak, so you'd have to expect that crack about folk tales being secondary to mythology.

I really enjoyed The King with Horse's Ears. As my son said, some of the endings are a little bit of a let-down. But, if you read many folk tales or fairy tales, you'll find that's not unusual. They sometimes have grand, heroic endings but often end in death or misery for the innocent or punishment for the wicked -- it can go either way. Sometimes the bad guys win. In this case, of course, there are lots of interesting Irish touches: fairies, warriors, changeling babies, peat burning in the fireplace and a scary beasts with glowing eyes.

The author has kindly provided not only a glossary but also some footnotes on pronunciation of difficult Gaelic names and words. If you can get those tricky words figured out, with the right amount of drama these stories would be excellent to read aloud to a room full of bright-eyed elementary students.

Two of my favorite stories are "The Boy and the Pooka", about a frightening beast that turns out to be harmless and kind, which has an unexpectedly sweet ending, and "Just One Choice," the story of a man who can make a single wish but has several things worth wishing for and must decide which wish is the most important. "Just One Choice" is actually not a traditional folk tale, but one written by the author of the book. I thought it was terribly clever and so did my son.

The illustrations in this book are absolutely fabulous. I found myself staring at them, wondering to myself how on earth the illustrator accomplished those effects. I'm guessing the media is mixed, but man . . . just looking at those illustrations made me want to go to art school so I could possibly identify how he went about creating them. I've recently read two other Sterling Children's books and I have to say I think they're consistently, mind-bogglingly wonderful. If you're ever looking for some knock-out books to buy as gifts for youngsters, definitely look up Sterling Kids.

In other news:

Last week I really kept the parcel deliverers on their toes. I believe the final count of books that arrived on our doorstep was a whopping 19 -- probably an all-time high. Fortunately, it was really just a timing issue. I don't normally acquire that many books in a single week. If I did, we'd be living in a warehouse, not a home. But, I'll bet I could assemble some fine and extremely attractive furniture if I was willing to glue my books together.

Today, only one book walked in: The Moment Between by Nicole Baart.

The next few weeks will be very, very busy for us. I have been ridiculously lax on my gardening chores, so I need to do some intense work to get the planting done before it becomes too hot. Also, my son will be out of school for Easter week. I try not to spend all day blogging and twittering when he's around and we're going to try to work on emptying out our den so we can find someone to fix a flooring disaster. We did kind of turn our den into a pseudo warehouse. Ah, well. Sometimes you lose your head.

Point being, if I'm slower to post and/or approve comments (it may take me a couple of days, on occasion), please be patient with me. If the chores become overwhelming, I'll simply take a week or two off, but I'll give you fair warning so you don't worry that I've fallen into one of the two gigantic new sinkholes that have developed in Vicksburg, recently.

Also, don't forget tomorrow is the day of my drawing for a copy of any one title from Colleen Gleason's Gardella Vampire series!!! It's a sticky. If you're on a reader, just hop on over to the blog and look up. Happy Monday!