Storybook Favorites

Death's Final Story

I was drawn to this storybook because I generally really like stories featuring a personification of Death, especially when that personification is something of a protagonist or narrator rather than something to be feared. I found the structure, with Death speaking directly to the reader in the form of giving advice to a successor to his job, very interesting, as it was not something I had seen done before. The introduction drew me immediately with the statement that Death also dies. Most Death personification stories I have read or seen before state the exact opposite, so I was intrigued to see how the storybook would resolve this statement.

Selkies in Celtic Folk Lore

I've always been a fan of Celtic stories, and I was familiar with the idea of selkies, although I didn't previously know any specific stories about them, so I was curious to read this storybook. I really liked the way it was set up as a mother telling a series of stories to her daughter. It allowed for an introduction and reaction to each story without disrupting the flow of the stories themselves. It was also interesting to see these stories from the perspective of the selkies instead of a human perspective, and the way this shift in viewpoint gave them the appearance of cautionary tales. I felt that the picture of the statue in the last story really communicated the longing and pain of the selkies in this storybook.
                                                     
                           (Statue of the Little Mermaid. Alena's Daughter, Selkies in Celtic Folk Lore)

Ghost Stories

Honestly, who doesn't love a good ghost story? I wasn't familiar with any of the specific stories that where used for inspiration in this one, but I did recognize elements of each one from various urban legends and scary movies. The way it was framed as an investigation was a good way of building suspense by limiting the amount of information both the reader and the narrator herself had access to at any given time in the story. I was clear from the introduction that the storybook was going to focus on investigating the haunted house and retelling the experiences of previous residents, but I didn't expect the level of sympathy given to the ghost. I also really didn't see the end coming.