So even though I know how prolific Jane Yolen is, I’ve only read two of her books before now, one that I didn’t care for, Armageddon Summer, and one that really was so good, The Devil’s Arithmetic. And I’m sure I’ve paged through some of the children’s books she’s written, especially some of them that the title begins with: How Do Dinosaurs…. So my expectations of this were few, I just wanted to see how it would be. In the past I’ve always enjoyed fairy tale retellings, and I do love circus stories.

On that note, honestly, there weren’t that many stories that related to the circus truly in the book. But that’s okay, because there were a lot of really good short stories and fairy tales. Some that definitely had basis on ones I was familiar with, and others that were new and intriguing. I read all of the stories except one towards the end. And I feel like it started out and I just thought I’d already read so many similar to it in the book that I was going to skip it, and I did, and was immediately drawn in to the next one.

Overall a great short story collection, I could see for upper middle grades for sure, possibly into the lower grades at high school level.

Review first appeared on Lisa Loves Literature.