This is a collection of stories and poetry that has been published before. I enjoyed reading it as I have not read that much of her writing due to the fact that I usually find those books sold out. I like that there are re-imagining classic stories besides fairy tales. It's been fun to read these as they have her earlier writings to current writings. The familiar stories are told from a different slant. I highly recommend reading this collection.

The Emerald Circus is a collection of short stories by Jane Yolen. I would say the majority if not all of them are aimed at adults. All are previously published with the exception of The Bird - a short story about Edgar Allan Poe. The tales themselves are mostly retellings or riffs on famous stories or people. Three of the stories are based on Alice in Wonderland. Some examples of inspiration for other stories are Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Beauty and the Beast, The Wizard of Oz, Emily Dickinson, and Hans Christian Andersen.

All of the stories are well written. The book includes an introduction by Holly Black. And at the end, there are notes about the stories and poems related to each of the stories. I found even these end notes enjoyable to read. They tell a little about each story and its origins. The poems are an added bonus.

I enjoyed all of the stories, but I have a few favorites: Andersen's Witch, Blown Away, Our Lady of the Greenwood, Evian Steel, and Sister Emily's Lightship. Each I enjoyed for different reasons. All of them had excellent prose. And for example, I felt the characterization of Emily Dickinson in Sister Emily's Lightship to be right on target even though it is a fantastical tale.

I gave this collection 5 out of 5 stars for the quality of the writing. While each was a riff based on another tale or person, I can say that I haven't read anything quite like them. And I love retellings and have read quite a lot of them.

This book is perfect for people who enjoy Jane Yolen's writing and people who enjoy retellings.

The Emerald Circus was published November 14, 2017 from Tachyon.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions herein are my own and freely given.

Jane Yolen is one of those authors that I grew up reading. I have fond memories of many books (Dragons blood my absolute favourite!) so was very eager to read this and boy, it doesn't disappoint! Tapping into the current (resurfaced) trend of alternative takes on popular tales, these short stories are a delight to read! Thank you for the opportunity to read this!

The Emerald Circus is a collection of short stories which I would call a reimagining of fairy tales. I often struggle to become invested with short stories and I found that was true in this case. While the reimagining was often very creative, it streamed a little too outside the box for me. I did enjoy the Lost Girls story that showed Peter Pan and Wendy in a different light.

This was my first time reading Jane Yolen’s short stories, but before was familiar with her longer works and her books for children. I knew her as a prolific writer, so I was drawn to read a new (to me) side of her work. Within a few stories I became aware of Yolen’s talent for creating a sense of place, but most especially her talent for creating a powerful narrative voice. Jumping quickly from short story to short story demonstrated her ability to get inside of her narrator, each story was told with a distinct voice that helped to shape every aspect of the world. I am hooked and intend to pick up more of her shorts in the future, in addition I want to reread a few of her novels and pay closer attention to her carefully constructed narrative voice.

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. The premise is amazing and I've been reading Jane Yolen books for awhile, but, for me, these sort of fell flat. I can understand how others would adore these, because some of them are fun and they are well-written, but this book just wasn't for me. I would still recommend it for those that are fans of fairy tales or fairy tale retellings. 3 out of 5 stars.

Enter the Emerald Circus and be astonished by the transformations of your favorite tales. Ringmaster and internationally bestselling author Jane Yolen (Briar Rose, Sister Emily’s Lightship) spins modern fantasy classics in tales that go well beyond Wonderland and Oz, down the rabbit hole and back again.

Where is Wendy? Leading a labor strike against the Lost Boys, of course! A girl blown away from Kansas returns as a sophisticate with unusual gymnastic abilities. A talented apprentice, forging her first sword, is suddenly left to the mercies of Merlin. Alice’s infamous nemesis has jaws and claws, but also lacks the essential: a sense of humor.

Witty and bold, and unexpected, these tales go well beyond the rabbit hole and back again.

Table of Contents

Andersen’s Witch - I enjoyed this one and it's rift on Hans Christian Andersen
Lost Girls - quite possibly my favorite of the whole book besides the reimaginings of Oz and Alice.
Tough Alice - LOVED IT!
Blown Away - LOVED IT!
A Knot of Toads - I was very surprised by this story but enjoyed it.
The Quiet Monk - not a standout for me as a reader
The Bird - quite mysterious, loved the Poe vibe!
Belle Bloody Merciless Dame - just okay for me
Jewel in the Toad Queen’s Crown - same, just okay not a favorite
A Gift of Magicians - not a standout for me as a reader
Rabbit Hole - another favorite.
Our Lady of the Greenwood - a spin on Robin Hood
The Confession of Brother Blaise - not a standout for me as a reader
Wonder Land - short but packs a punch.
Evian Steel - extremely intriguing and engaging, sort of a prequel to King Arthur
Sister Emily’s Lightship - Emily Dickinson!!!!

Overall, this was a well written collection of stories. Yolen is a master of her craft.

Final rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This is the first time I have encountered Jane Yolen’s work and it was an interesting experience with regards to how to rework fairy tales in a novel way. Or maybe I should have said subvert, because there is a sense of an initially straightforward approach to some of the stories which turn into something wonderfully not right. In other tales the setup leaves you in great suspense (or anxiety) trying to work out where the words might be taking you.
My particular favourites were a retelling of Peter Pan and that righting wrongs has consequences that you might need to take responsibility for, and Hans Christian Andersen’s creative life.
Some of the stories feel huge in scope, because they take place over years, but fit into a relatively small word space. Yet the reader is not left feeling as if there is any urgency in this apparent lack of room for the writer to express herself creatively.
These stories will have a wide age range appeal and an older YA reader might find these stories a great transition into more conceptually complex adult fantasy/sci-fi books because there is a great deal about relationships within them, and a depth to the stories they can really get their teeth into.
This is a book to go back to for a writer so you can pull it apart and learn technique. For a reader, The Emerald Circus is just to be enjoyed for the clever way in which an old story can be presented anew, and just because the book is a good read.
One to keep.

This was a mixed bag. I've loved Jane Yolen ever since I read Briar Rose as a kid, so I was excited to read The Emerald Circus. Some stories were wonderful. Others felt like they'd been included just to pad out the page count. My ratings of individual stories would differ wildly from a perfect score to a single star rating, which brings the whole book to an average rating overall. Which is a shame, because the great stories like The Bird, Lost Girls, Tough Alice and Andersen's Witch all deserve to be read and I fear the overall rating of this collection will make people less likely to pick it up. I'd love to see this re-released with a bit more quality control on the full range of stories.

I received this collection of short stories from Net Galley, The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen. Many of the stories take familiar fairy tales or folk tales and give them a new spin, like the title story about Dorothy Gale of Kansas. There’s one about Wendy and the Lost Boys, one about Hans Christian Andersen, and one about Wonderland. But there are other stories too, about witches and parents and children and legends of old. I’m about halfway done and it’s been great to have something I’m really enjoying. I think I’ve read one or two of these stories before. I didn’t know this, but Yolen has written 300 books! Can you even believe that? I’m struggling to finish one!

I got this book for free in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts remain my own.

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of this book via NetGalley.

The title of this collection of short stories and poems alludes to the fourth, Blown Away, which is a reworking of The Wizard of Oz - or perhaps a prequel, sequel or accompaniment, featuring a Dorothy who, though blown away by a tornado, does not - or at she claims not - end up in the land of Oz the Great and Powerful but in a circus. When she returns to Kansas with many new skills it seems though as if she might as well have been whisked to that land of magic and illusion.

And so it is with most of the stories here. They present new insights, new takes, on a familiar fairy story or childhood classic. Sometimes, as with Andersen's Witch or Rabbit Hole, the creator is entangled with the creation, as we see the young boy Hans bargaining with a witch over his future, or Alice at the end of her life pondering what her attraction for Mr Dodgson was (genuinely unsettling, the end of this one).

Sometimes Yolen's take is implicit in the original story, once you look, that is, and then you wonder that no-one had joined the dots before. For example, in Lost Girls, we're shown Neverneverland from a distinctly feminist point of view, with Peter shown up for keeping the women cooking and cleaning while he and the other Boys have all the fun (and in so doing he misses something very significant about his world).

Yolen sometimes returns to a setting or a theme. As well as Rabbit Hole, there is Tough Alice in which her younger self is making one of what appear to be a series of visits. As well as the usual Carrollian Surrealism - a pig turning into pork loin and back again, Alice pondering, on seeing that the Caterpillar has gone fishing, whether he uses with worms or whether that would be "too much like using his own family for bait" - there is a darker strand, the need to battle the Jabberwock. Alice looks for a champion, but where will she find one?

A Knot of Toads is a rather different story. It's not a riff on fairy stories so much as a more straightforward take on a favourite author of mine, MR James. This is a tale of Janet, a 1930s scholar from Cambridge (of course) come home to settle her father's affairs in the remote Scottish town of St Monan's. Janet is estranged from her dad ("Father and I had broken so many fences - stones, dykes, stiles and all") but sis till troubled by his mysterious death and his writings about an unsettling encounter with a toad. In true Jamesian spirit he has meddled with something best left alone, and in true Jamesian spirit he recorded his doings in manuscript, for Janet to unravel. Of course Monty never wrote a female lead and as this nice little story observes the proper forms it dynamites their conventions, not least by bringing in a love interest. My favourite story in the collection.

The Quiet Monk is the first of several stories in this book with an Arthurian theme (but we never meet Arthur himself, of course). Set in Glastonbury in 1191, it features the opening up of a rather remarkable grave, and a brother who claims to have wandered long and who has stories to tell.

The Bird is the story of a raven, and Virginia, and a writer named Edgar - one of several stories in which, like Andersen's Witch or Sister Emily's Lightship (where Emily Dickinson has a strange encounter which shows her the whole world and how she can live in a narrow place) Yolen winds a little magic round a writer's life.

Belle Bloody Merciless Dame is an eerie and effective collision between a gritty Glasgow and the otherness of - what exactly? There is mention of an elf, on a Solstice - and Sam Herriot has an encounter that he'll always remember (if, that is, he ever finds his way home).

The Jewel in the Toad Queen's Crown is a wonderful story, a mashup of 19th century British politics, cabalism and fairytales. It shows the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as an outsider figure, who, faced with the Widow of Windsor, resorts to certain... unusual... methods of managing his monarch.

The Gift of the Magicians, with Apologies to You Know Who, is a deeply strange take on Beauty and the Beast which both explores the practicalities and possibilities of Beauty's situation. What is the relationship between that castle and the outside world? Where does the food come from? Just how much can you achieve - even which "the magical help"? And what might that drive a girl to do?

Our Lady of the Greenwood is about the birth of Robin Hood. It's a table of moonlight, magic, promises, and protection, taking another, rather mysterious folk hero and plugging him firmly into a wider, yet living, context.

The Confession of Brother Blaise is a kind of counterpart to Our Lady of the Greenwood focussing this time on Merlin and, again, plugging into real history via the real Geoffrey of Monmouth. What is real and what's merely written down? When does the writing make the reality?

Wonder Land, despite its title, isn't another Alice story but has loose overtones of Red Riding hood. A girl is making a journey through the wood to tell her friend where Billy Jamieson had tried to put his hand...and where she let him put it. The animals she meets seem to illustrate her theme - a fox exposing its private parts, a pair of crows "doing it right there". It's not an innocent woodland, but Allison seems to know what she's about. And yes, there is a wolf too.

Evian Steel again takes us to the world of King Arthur with a simply bewitching tale of pagan women swordsmiths working in the mysterious mists of Somerset. A perfect story and I don't want to spoil it by saying anything about what takes place, but in many ways it encapsulates this book: these are women who are explicitly marginalised, who will be left out of the main story (reduced to an arm holding a sword out of the lake) yet they are central, indispensable, skilled - in control.

Yolen rounds off the book with notes on all the stories and with a poems suggested by each, or which suggested them or explores the same themes. As a way of gently closing down the book, echoing the themes of the stories and showing a wider world there from which they are drawn, this is hard to beat.

Overall a very strong collection of stories showcasing the talents of a master practitioner. Definitely not a book to miss.

https://lynns-books.com/2017/11/30/the-emerald-circus-by-jane-yolen/
I don’t make a secret of the fact that short stories don’t always work for me and in fact I usually avoid collections but the promise of retellings based on old favourites such as Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz and the mention of tales that bring into play Robin Hood, Merlin and King Arthur, definitely intrigued me and I couldn’t resist picking up a copy of this one.

Did Jane Yolen manage to spin her magic in this collection, yes, for me she did. I’m not going to pretend that I was equally gripped by all the tales, in a collection like this it’s inevitable that you’ll have favourites, just like in a box of chocolates, but the writing was lovely and the feeling of reading a story before going to sleep all added to the sense of whimsy and nostalgia and made this collection enjoyable to pick up last thing of an evening. And, thankfully, unlike a box of chocolates – there were no coffee ones.

I’m not going to go into all the offerings but will highlight briefly the ones that worked well for me.

The first tale looks at the life of Hans Christian Anderson. Famous the world over for his wonderful stories this particular offering has a lovely fairytale feel that combines elements that for me brought to mind Pinocchio, The Snow Queen and even, a little, the Elves and the Shoemaker – which isn’t to say that those are Anderson stories (apart from the Snow Queen that is). This is a story that has a sad feeling to it although the ending is a little bit more upbeat. It brought to mind the saying ‘be careful what you wish for’ and also the fae nature of wishes and more to the point making sure that they’re very specifically worded.

Lost Girls was a story that shines a different light on Peter Pan and perhaps looks at the changing role of women – or maybe I’m just reading too much into it – there’s this whole element here of why did Peter really bring Wendy to Neverland? She didn’t really take part in his adventures but was brought there more to fulfil the role of ‘mother’. For me, Lost Girls adds another level to the story. Girls want to take part in the adventure not just facilitate the adventures of others while they stand by with a cup of tea and a hanky.

My absolute favourite of the book was A Knot of Toads. I just really enjoyed this story. Based in Scotland it’s a tale that invokes long shadows, whispers in corners and witchcraft. A young woman who returns to her childhood home to lay her father to rest. Estranged for many years the two of them shared a love of books and a misunderstanding of each other. This story just really appealed to me and on top of that who knew that toads were sometimes known as puddocks. That’s a keeper.

Our Lady of the Greenwood was another of my favourites. It takes the myth of Robin Hood, adds a hint of fae and comes up with a story of how Robin was named. I’m a bit of a sucker for all things fae and so the scene in the woods with the fae dancing beneath the trees, coupled with the sometimes dangerous side to their nature really appealed to me. The naming scene in the woods had a lovely element of the fairy godmothers in Sleeping Beauty. I could certainly have read more of this tale – Robin Hood and his adventures – brings fond memories of my gran who used to recount tales to me and my sister. I loved her storytelling – she had a way of telling us stories that on reflection could be quite dark. Robin Hood’s tales were the lighter ones and it was lovely to go back to a story about how he possible received his name. My gran would have liked this one I think.

The last two stories that I will mention are:

Evian Steel which is a beautifully written story that could be a very early start to the legend of Merlin, King Arthur and his queen . It revolves around the forging of swords, Excalibur, and also brought to mind the Lady in the Lake. I loved this one. The island came to life in my imagination, the life of the girls sent to learn how to forge steel and the fears they had of what was to come. It had a mysteriously dark side and was so well executed.

Sister Emily’s Lightship was the final tale and was very quirky and different in nature than the other stories in this book. A look at Emily Dickinson and her, perhaps, out of this world inspirational experience.

This was a lovely collection of stories. Some of them will undoubtedly appeal more than others but if you fancy a book that you can pick up randomly to read a story in one sitting this could be just what you’re looking for.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

I have mixed feelings on this story collection. It is clear that Yolen is writing from a place of great love and passion for the old works that inspired her stories here. Many of these stories operate sort of as mini prequels or sequels showing what came before or after those old beloved stories. Yolen takes those stories in thoughtful directions. I loved some of the stories, such as Lost Girls, but at the same time, others failed to hold my attention for very long.

Here is the sort of thing you can expect to get in this collection: Peter Pan's "Wendys" go on strike to protest the motherly role they've been forced into. Emily Dickinson meets an alien. Hans Christian Andersen meets the Snow Queen. Excalibur is forged by a cult of women who make magical blades.

Under the big top of The Emerald Circus (2017) is a fantastical assemblage of sixteen short stories and novelettes by Jane Yolen. Historical figures like Emily Dickinson, Benjamin Disraeli, Hans Christian Andersen and Edgar Allen Poe enter the three rings and shed their normal identities, dancing across the high wires and peering into tigers’ mouths. In this circus’ House of Mirrors we also see unexpectedly twisted reflections of fictional characters like Alice in Wonderland (who makes an appearance here in two very different Yolen tales), Merlin, and Dorothy Gale. A few fairy tale characters ― the Snow Queen, Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood and the wolf ― round out the performers in this entrancing circus.

My favorite stories in this collection:

“Andersen’s Witch” ― Hans, a young boy from a destitute, conflict-ridden family, is visited by the Ice Maiden one night, who grants him his three wishes. He wishes for a bed long enough for his legs to fit, for his Papa to get well enough to earn money for the family, and to become a rich poet, a digter. Like wishes granted by faeries, though, those granted by the Ice Maiden may twist in the way they are granted.

"Surely a price will be demanded, he thought feverishly. Witches promise you sweets and then shove you in the oven."

Can the grown man Hans, the famous digter, outwit the Ice Maiden who has become the cold Snow Queen?
“Lost Girls” ― Darla, angry because it isn’t fair that Wendy does all the housework in Neverland and Peter Pan and the boys get to fight pirates, goes to bed and finds herself in Neverland. It’s even worse than she imagined: there’s a whole slew of girls (all of them dismissively called “Wendy” by Peter Pan and the Lost Boys) doing all of the cleaning for a group of extremely messy boys. Darla decides to lead a strike (“Being the daughter of a labor lawyer had its advantages”) in this delightful take on Peter Pan.

“Blown Away” ― Dorothy Gale does indeed get blown away by a cyclone in this story, narrated by Tom, one of the farm hands. When Dorothy returns seven years later, claiming that she’d experienced a memory loss and had been adopted by the Emerald Circus, Tom wonders about the truth of her story. It’s intriguing to trace the connections between this story and the original Wizard of Oz story by L. Frank Baum (the fate of Toto is eyebrow-raising), but more interesting is the insights into the various characters, like the long-hidden feelings of Tom’s wife Amelia.

“Evian Steel” ― This story is a type of prequel to the King Arthur legend, set on Ynis Evelonia, an island of women who make the finest swords known in the kingdom. Elaine is sent to the island as a young girl, to live there for the rest of her life. It’s a difficult transition, but gradually she settles in and begins to get to know the other girls and to learn the art of sword making. When the time comes for Elaine’s older friend Veree to go through an initiation process, Elaine wishes to stand by her in her trial.

In some of the other stories, Alice makes a return trip to Wonderland and has to face her greatest fear in the Jabberwock (“Tough Alice”), Beauty and the Beast channel O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” with an outcome that I definitely did not expect (“The Gift of the Magicians”), Robin Hood’s dying mother has a terrifying request to make of his nurse when her son is born (“Our Lady of the Greenwood”), and Emily Dickinson meets … an unexpectedly inspiring space alien (“Sister Emily’s Lightship”). It’s a varied and imaginative collection.

A few of these stories, like “The Bird,” in which Edgar and his young, ailing wife discuss their bothersome pet raven, are vignettes, glimpses of events in a character’s life, rich with imagery but perhaps too brief or one-note to make a lasting impression. On the other hand, “Wonder Land,” though even shorter, packs a sensual, feminist punch in three pages.

Except for “The Bird,” these are previously published stories; for example, four of them appeared in an earlier Yolen short fiction collection, Sister Emily’s Lightship and Other Stories. Here, though, each story is accompanied by Yolen’s insightful story notes at the end of this collection, and by a blank verse poem (most of which are new) that relates topically or thematically to that story. For example, “Tough Alice,” in which Alice desperately battles the Jabberwock, is accompanied by this thought-provoking poem:

Managing Your Flamingo
So there she is, Alice underground,
life more complex than imagined.
A game, she’s told, though without
rules or white lines or a sense of finality.
They hand her a bird, the pink of longing,
beak as sharp as an executioner’s sword,
its gangle of legs tangling her skirt.
The queen growls: Manage your flamingo,
and the others shout: Play on, play through.
As if it were life.
As perhaps it is.

The Emerald Circus is a circus worth visiting and revisiting from time to time.

I actually requested this in a hope to read much of fairy tales, or at least get an idea of each in one single book. Jane Yolen didn't disappoint me. I enjoyed every story included in here. In my most honest opinion, I must say, I liked how she twist the original stories, molding them using HER OWN style, without taking off the feeling of familiarity that most fairy tale readers have grown up with.
I applauded Yolen's ability to add dark and drama to each story. I specifically loved Blown Away which is Dorothy's story. And that Knot of Toads. :)

Overall, this is a perfect collection of short stories of well-loved classics. I read this one, little by little an denjoyed them still. A story a day and what a great journey it was while reading this book. :)

Despite my low rating this is actually a very well-written book and I did consider giving it 3 stars instead of 2. But ultimately looking back at all the stories I think the only one I actually enjoyed was Lost Girls and several of them were so bad at holding my attention that I skimmed through them. I haven't read anything by this author before but from what I understand she's been writing for a long time and that all of these stories have previously been published in other places, which makes sense because a lot of them felt rather dated to me. If you REALLY like fairytale retellings [although some of them are really stretching that definition a bit] then you might like this, but I didn't think most of them were all that innovative. Also there were 3 Alice in Wonderland retellings in a collection of maybe 12-15 stories which I thought was kind of overkill. Although I guess again if you really love AiW then that might be a selling point.

This collection gathers a number of Jane Yolen's short stories from other anthologies, except for one new story (a riff on Poe). Though Yolen most of her 300 books are for kid readers, I don't think this collection is for the young.

I've read most of these stories over the past three decades, which are predominantly twists on fairy tales or old folklore. Yolen was doing it before it became popular, and some hold up better than others. My favorite two are the first and last, the first a tribute to Hans Christian Andersen (whose stories, incidentally, I loathed as a child, as they were all so sad, and no little girl came out well in any of them) but this one still moved me as a beautiful tribute.

The last story, a science fiction story about Emily Dickinson and a visitor from the stars, is my favorite of all her stories.

Best of all is an essay at the end talking about the various stories and their inspirations, with poetry at the end of each note. This essay is a must for Yolen fans; even the stories that don't quite work for this or that reader might become more interesting after one reads the notes. Especially writers, who like to see what an author was aiming for.

Altogether a lovely collection, but I wouldn't give it to anyone under sixteen without reading it first.

I’m ashamed to have to admit that before requesting The Emerald Circus, to review, I didn’t know who Jane Yolen was. I don’t know why, but she never entered my circle of consciousness, despite being a veteran of SFF, having been publishing for over 50 years, having won countless awards, and being known as ‘the Hans Christian Andersen of America’. So I’m grateful to Tachyon for publishing this remarkable short story collection and introducing me to Yolen’s work.

The Emerald Circus is a collection of a number of Yolen’s stories both previously published (from 1985 onward) and new, almost all of which are based on legends and fairytales or on history itself, as well as an appendix of Yolen’s notes on the stories, plus an original poem for each.

The title stems from ‘Blown Away’, the fourth story in the collection, which takes the story of Dorothy and twists it in a thoroughly weird (and queer) direction. Despite this, Alice (as in Wonderland) is the star of this collection, featuring in three of the stories in this collection. Yolen connects the two with a poem in which Dorothy and Alice take tea together, both of them a little lost outside of their respective adventures.

Alongside Wonderland, the other vein running through this book is Arthurian legend (two stories of which happen to be recounted by old monks, funnily enough). My favourite story in the book is one of these: ‘Evian Steel’, set on Ynis Evelonia in the river Tamor, where only women live and where they forge the finest swords known to man. I don’t want to spoil anyone, so just read it, okay? I’d rec this book on the basis of this story alone.

The collection closes with the Nebula Award-winning ‘Sister Emily’s Lightship’—in which Emily Dickinson gets to visit space. This story is so full of quiet tenderness that when I read in the story notes that Jane Yolen knows quite possibly more than anyone else about Dickinson I wasn’t at all surprised. In a way this story feels like a gift from Yolen to a beloved author, a woman who suffered much but kept outpouring so much beauty and understanding from her heart.

While I found it unusual, the story notes at the end of the book really helped me connect with Jane Yolen as an author after reading the rest of the collection. As my introduction to her, I enjoyed reading background detail on the stories in her own voice. As for the poems, I felt their inclusion adds another layer of adaptation to these stories which are already themselves transformative of their original tales, which is fun. Plus, I never complain about additional material when I enjoyed the main as much as I did this.

The common theme in Yolen’s stories is their humanity. She treats every character in her stories with respect—there’s not one side character in one story that is a cardboard cut-out or a joke. Even in ‘The Jewel in the Toad Queen’s Crown’, abhorrent little Queen Victoria and her designs of empire are somehow relatable, even magical, without ducking the reality of her unpleasantness and cruelty. (The only conceivable exception for me would be Morgan in ‘Evian Steel’, but given what we know about her I’d say she’s just been made more disturbing.) By this, Yolen lays out the truth of the world through myth and story, maybe the ultimate theme to this fascinating collection: nothing is simple.

I love Jane Yolen, so I was excited to read this book. As I expected, the quality of writing in this collection is excellent. My only problem is that it seems like two different collections. I think the order of the stories is more the cause of that feeling than the stories themselves. I enjoyed reading about the origin of each story at the back of the book. However, I would have appreciated them more had they been placed before or after the stories they explained. This book would be great for anyone seeking nostalgia through stories with familiar literary figures and locations. My favorite is the story of Peter Pan and his Wendys.

<p>Many many moons ago, I read <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/43257">Briar Rose</a> and have had a soft spot for Jane Yolen ever since, although a soft spot in that until now I haven't read any of her other books (mainly because I aged out of the YA ones pretty much immediately after I read <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/43257">Briar Rose</a> and I don't tend to read too much adult fantasy, but I have <i>bought</i> some of her other books, like <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/9439380">Foiled</a> for Miss T). </p>

<p>So soft spot for Jane Yolen plus Jane Yolen books for request on <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> equals I have <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19513170/book/146562775">The Emerald Circus</a> and <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/113003">another Jane Yolen book</a> to review. And <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19513170/book/146562775">The Emerald Circus</a> is a shout-out to Oz,
and there are other fairy tale retellings/fairy tale inspired stories and then <A href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Disraeli">Disraeli</a> casts cabalistic magic on Queen Victoria and Emily Dickenson is abducted by space aliens and ...</p>

<p>Yeah, I'm back in the world of books with <a href="http://www.reluctantm.com/?p=3032">bizarre twists out of nowhere</a> (no <a href="http://www.reluctantm.com/?p=3206">squid sex</a>, so I guess we have a kinda win here?). So if you like odd, and short stories, and fairy tales, and aliens, <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19513170/book/146562775">The Emerald Circus</a> might be the book for you. The Oz retelling was pretty nifty, I do have to say. </p>

<p>But then aliens. Sigh. Maybe my tombstone could read <i>Always managed to find the books with surprise aliens in them</i>.</p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19513170/book/146562775">The Emerald Circus</a> by Jane Yolen went on sale November 14, 2017.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>