Can wood, copper, or marble communicate? They can if they are the graven images in Newbery Medalist Paul Fleischman's trio of eerie, beguiling short stories. If you whisper a secret into a wooden statue's ear, will anyone find out? Can a wobbly weathervane bearing the image of Saint Crispin, the patron saint of shoemakers, steer a love-struck apprentice toward the girl of his dreams? And if a ghost hires a sculptor to carve a likeness of him holding a drink to a baby's lips, what ghastly crime might lie behind his request? And, in a brand-new afterword, the acclaimed storyteller reveals how he found his own author's voice.
Three short stories revolve around a quirky theme: the role of a statue in delivering a person's inevitable reckoning. The first and last stories are dark and even a bit spooky, describing the wooden statue that survived a mysterious shipboard disaster and a desperate Italian marble sculptor who takes on a questionable assignment. In contrast, the middle story, which incorporates a weathervane, enjoys more whimsy. A different narrator for each story provides suitable separation and diversity in the compilation. The author's brief afterward explains his inspiration and provides insight for young aspiring writers but would have been more meaningful if read by the author. N.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
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