These stories’ engaging blend of reality and fantasy moves the action along while giving young readers a taste of Swedish...
Adventures with a goblin teach a young Swedish boy about Christmas magic, loyalty and family in this collection of connected stories.
After penning six fictional works and one biography, Caulfield (World War II Army Nurse, 2013, etc.) is at her storytelling best in these six Christmas tales set in her native Sweden. Their hero, a young boy named Björn, lives with his family on a farm in Dalecarlia. Part of the stories’ charm comes from the author’s evocation of life on the farm—an area lovely in summer, with “warm, sunny days and cool evenings,” but snowy, icy and dangerous after midwinter solstice. Björn’s Christmas experiences become more challenging in each story as he moves from age 6 to 12. Caulfield’s gradual approach enables young readers to share Björn’s insights and see where the sometimes rash and selfish boy might need to improve his behavior. Each year, Björn gains a new understanding of forgiveness, love, family and community, thanks in part to his visits with Nisse, a short, stocking-capped, mysterious and powerful tomte, goblin, who hides in the barn. The boy comes to realize why legend has taught farmers to honor these centuries-old creatures; Nisse demands respect in the form of porridge after Christmas Eve dinner, but he also needs more than a hollow ritual. Only Björn seems to be able to chat with Nisse, and with him, the boy visits various tunnels and secret rooms. The lad’s hardworking parents, occupied with responsibilities and chores, often seem oblivious to his opinions, but grandmother Farmor and grandfather Farfar remember Nisse’s magic and assist Björn in his adventures. Modern life intrudes in the longest story, “The Unwelcome Stranger,” when the boy’s parents bring home Ibrahim, a strange child who speaks no Swedish, to become his new brother. Björn comes to love him, however, and Nisse’s magic cap helps save the day when immigration officials arrive to take Ibrahim away.
These stories’ engaging blend of reality and fantasy moves the action along while giving young readers a taste of Swedish folklore.Pub Date: June 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499544497
Page Count: 146
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.
Seven stories, including a couple of prizewinners, from an exuberantly talented young Thai-American writer.
In the poignant title story, a young man accompanies his mother to Kok Lukmak, the last in the chain of Andaman Islands—where the two can behave like “farangs,” or foreigners, for once. It’s his last summer before college, her last before losing her eyesight. As he adjusts to his unsentimental mother’s acceptance of her fate, they make tentative steps toward the future. “Farangs,” included in Best New American Voices 2005 (p. 711), is about a flirtation between a Thai teenager who keeps a pet pig named Clint Eastwood and an American girl who wanders around in a bikini. His mother, who runs a motel after having been deserted by the boy’s American father, warns him about “bonking” one of the guests. “Draft Day” concerns a relieved but guilty young man whose father has bribed him out of the draft, and in “Don’t Let Me Die in This Place,” a bitter grandfather has moved from the States to Bangkok to live with his son, his Thai daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. The grandfather’s grudging adjustment to the move and to his loss of autonomy (from a stroke) is accelerated by a visit to a carnival, where he urges the whole family into a game of bumper cars. The longest story, “Cockfighter,” is an astonishing coming-of-ager about feisty Ladda, 15, who watches as her father, once the best cockfighter in town, loses his status, money, and dignity to Little Jui, 16, a meth addict whose father is the local crime boss. Even Ladda is in danger, as Little Jui’s bodyguards try to abduct her. Her mother tells Ladda a family secret about her father’s failure of courage in fighting Big Jui to save his own sister’s honor. By the time Little Jui has had her father beaten and his ear cut off, Ladda has begun to realize how she must fend for herself.
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8021-1788-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2004
Readers who limit themselves to one story a night are in for a lot of sleepless nights.
Ardai celebrates the 20th anniversary of his publishing imprint, Hard Case Crime, by reprinting 20 of his own noir tales from 1990 to 2023.
Any collection this big is bound to be a mixed bag, but even the lesser stories here illuminate the formulas they depart from. “The Investigation of Things,” in which two Chinese brothers compete to solve the murder of a Buddhist monk, shows that Ardai’s gifts aren’t best suited to whodunits. The cancellation of a boy’s promised trip to see the circus in “The Day After Tomorrow” pushes Ardai’s ability to plot a short-short story to the limit. And “Nobody Wins,” which chronicles the gratuitously calamitous effects of a private eye’s search for his missing fiancee, has a title that would have been perfect for this whole volume. Ardai’s best stories walk a tightrope between noir fatalism and surprising invention. Some of them boast unsettlingly original premises. A fed pursues a doomed relationship with the grieving mother of a boy he arrested and got killed in “The Home Front”; “Game Over” follows a roll of quarters intended as a birthday gift; “My Husband’s Wife” showcases the coolly amoral voice of a conference attendee’s wife as she commits an escalating series of infractions. Other stories present endings bound to startle the most hard-bitten fans. “The Case” follows the adventures of a suitcase bomb that hasn’t (yet) exploded; a bodyguard’s search for a lubricious charge who’s disappeared from under his nose leads to a bloodbath in “Jonas and the Frail”; the man who hires a trio of contract killers in “Masks” turns out to have a shocking motive; and the ending of “A Free Man,” neatly balancing disillusionment and sentiment, provides a fitting close to the volume.
Readers who limit themselves to one story a night are in for a lot of sleepless nights.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781803366265
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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