The Strange Twins of Ben More

Spaeth’s offbeat yarns are dense with resonant motifs that suggest a mash-up of Beowulf, Icelandic sagas, and Arthurian romance, with a dash of Sir Walter Scott and a twist of Harry Potter. The stories are full of quests, puzzles, inventive twists, ominous threats, and terrifying villains who turn out to be not so terrifying when approached with a little empathy and common sense. The text’s poetry is in a lilting ballad form, its droll horrors and marvels bringing to mind Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” and the whimsy of Edward Lear. The author’s vivid imagery summons a wide range of emotions and moods, from the haunting fate of Callix’s jilted groom, who wastes his life mooning over what he thinks is her watery grave (“But the witch did not return, / Nor did the groom dive in; / Leaves changed and fell and turned to dust, / And so, at last, with him”) to Bahnee’s comically icky but pragmatic method of cultivating her avian familiars (“The lass brushed back her bonnet, / Stuffing haddock in her cheeks. / The birds began to gape and squawk / Till she spat into their beaks”).  Throughout, Spaeth conveys a classic fairy-tale mix of nightmarish spookiness and uncanny moralizing that will keep kids enchanted. The color illustrations, by several artists—especially Stawksa’s rich, chiaroscuro images of Gad’s Lambergoon adventure—make a captivating accompaniment to the text.

A richly imaginative set of poetic children’s fables that beg to be read aloud at bedtime.

--Kirkus Reviews