Characters in this volume of short stories shuffle through lives steeped in regret, uncertainty, and the inevitability of death.

In the opening tale, “The Woman Who Loved Trees,” an aging poet writes his latest verse. But as he reflects on a past that entails fame and praise that no longer interest him, he may be anticipating and welcoming death. Others in this book are more fearful of the end. Rascoe, for example, a blacksmith in “Ironwork,” scoffs at ostentatious newspaper headlines. But as 1999 comes to a close, those headlines, coupled with Rascoe’s ominous dreams, make Y2K a truly daunting forthcoming event. But Lowell’s stories aren’t typically bleak, notwithstanding the despondency that many of her characters endure. In “The Frog Prince,” Teresa Slade is on a “surprise vacation” with her husband, Ray, and her daughter, Claire. Though her overwhelming unhappiness is apparent, Teresa clings to hope, however fleeting it is. As in the author’s earlier work, the tales here are set mostly in Arizona and neighboring states, including the outstanding eponymous tale. In it, Elizabeth Ryding leaves her contemptible boyfriend in Alaska and returns to Arizona, her home state. But as her mother is oddly unavailable, she stays with her delightfully assertive Aunt Tinny along with, quite possibly, a ghost. Lowell displays a knack for indelible, concise descriptions and subtle humor. “The Witch of the Stacks,” for one, begins with: “Long, long ago, almost before computers.” In other instances, characters provide the charm, like Aunt Tinny—“Ahnt,” she repeatedly stresses—who answers her door with a sizable Rottweiler at her side and a hefty Colt .45 in her hand. The author also plays with different narrative forms: In “Love and Death,” a collection (within this collection) of “short short stories,” there’s flash fiction as well as a fragmented tale showcasing a killer’s frightening perspective.

Another sublime compilation from a consistently impressive wordsmith.

Lowell collects a novella and eight short stories, primarily set in various eras of the American Southwest.

In “The Kill,” a Montanan’s choice of college is on the other side of the country, in Princeton, New Jersey, but he doesn’t stray far from his roots; he even keeps a hunting rifle under his bed, and his ways seem to fascinate his English professor. However, for the most part, a theme of shared experience threads through Lowell’s book. In “Lavinia Peace,” wife and mother Lynn has spent her life in the Western United States, unlike her single, free-spirited sister, Catherine. But the two share, via photos and letters, memories of their great-grandmother and her great love, George. Similarly, the titular novella follows myriad characters through decades in Arizona and New Mexico, all connected by a rug that Adjiba Yazzie first weaves in 1920. It changes hands and homes several times until the 1980s, and its discernible blood-red color signifies a unity among people who otherwise have no blood relation. The author’s lyrical prose has a surreal quality; in “White Canyon,” for example, a young girl in the 1950s suffers a fall, and the scene abruptly transitions to 1980, when she’s living in Dallas with her husband and child. As an adult, she has headaches and seems to lose time, which may stem from radiation exposure when she was younger. But in all of Lowell’s tales, her prose ignites the senses, such as in the description of a woman weeping over a stove and hearing “tears dropping upon the hot metal with faint hisses.” Adjiba is described as enjoying working outside “under the broad blue sky” with the cottonwood trees’ “fresh light green against the cinnamon sand.” Scholes’ simple but distinctive black-and-white sketches preface each story as well as each of the novella’s five chapters.

Incisive, profound, and colorful tales.

Inspired by an actual quilt and armloads of memoirs, this account of an 1859 journey along the Santa Fe Trail bubbles over with verbal and visual vim. “I’m sewing to California!” proclaims young Lily Rose, needle in hand, as she and her Grandma make records on cloth about the mountains, storms, flora and fauna, a new baby and other milestones of their “BO-dacious” wagon trip. The trail also brings encounters with friendly groups of Apache and Pima. With a look and exuberance reminiscent of Patricia Polacco’s art, Dressen-McQueen’s painted scenes feature fine fabric patterns and stitchery, along with stylized figures high-stepping, nestling cozily together and eventually gathering around in a festive bee beneath California oranges to assemble the pieces of Lily Rose’s quilt. The “elephant” of the title refers to a 19th-century catchphrase about having, as Lowell puts it, “the thrill, or shock, of a lifetime,” and is also used (in a far more somber sense) in Pat Hughes’s Seeing the Elephant: A Story of the Civil War (2007), illustrated by Ken Stark. This iteration of the popular “wagons-west” theme kicks the energy level up a notch above the usual. (afterword, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)

Lowell and Cecil (Little Red Cowboy Hat, 1997) return to cowboy twists on nursery tales when they take Goldilocks and plunk her down in Montana in this spry retelling of a classic. Hewing to the original fairly closely, Lowell adds a few licks of her own: there’s Dusty Locks, a rapscallion who hasn’t taken a bath for a month of Sundays, and the bears are a family of grizzlies. Dusty raids the bears’ digs after they go for a walk while their beans are cooling. She scarfs the cub’s beans (the others are so spicy or too bland), busts the cub’s stool (by mistake), and takes to the cub’s bed when Papa Bear’s pile of prickly branches and Mama’s featherbed don’t suit her. When she awakens to the three bears staring down at her, she hightails it home and submits to a good washing. She’d never be recognized with her new sweet scent. Lowell trots out a good bunch of expressions—“cross as two sticks” and “no more manners than a pig in a peach orchard”—and the tale sparks with pert humor: When the bears find Dusty Locks sleeping in the cub’s bed, Mama Bear notes, “Smells mighty whiffy in here!” And though the story’s momentum is somewhat on the clunky side, the comedy keeps the wheels turning, as do Cecil’s pictures of goofy bears in cowboy boots and kerchiefs. (Picture book. 4-8)

From the author of The Bootmaker and the Elves (1997), another ripsnortin' Western take on a traditional fairy tale. Thanks to a spirited fairy godmother who gets all the best lines—“ ‘Remember, there ain't no horse that can't be rode, and there ain't no man that can't be throwed!’ ”—Cindy Ellen does make the local cattle baron's rodeo and follow-up square dance, proves herself a roping, riding champion, and ultimately hitches up with the rancher's son Joe Prince. Manning tricks out her characters in dazzling modern cowboy dress, and gives Cindy Ellen a big grin, a flowing mane of honey-colored hair, and diamond-studded stirrups instead of glass slippers. The stepsisters get off lightly, moving away to marry city slickers rather than mutilating themselves as in the Brothers Grimm version. Bright, stylish, and with a boosterish concluding note on women in rodeo. (Picture book/fairy tale. 7-9)

A bootmaker ``so poor even his shadow had holes in it'' wakes one morning to find his last piece of leather made into a pair of eye-popping, shiny new cowboy boots, bright with stars and roses. Sound familiar? Yep, it's a pair of tiny elves, and when the grateful bootmaker and his wife give them new duds to replace their patched overalls, they dance out the door, singing, ``Whoopee-ki-yi-yay, it's time to play! Yo-e-lay-eee-ooo, happy trails to you!'' As she did for Little Red Cowboy Hat (p. 302), Lowell gives the folktale a true Western spin, much abetted by the inventive Curry: Together they describe and depict each unique set of footwear in lovingly explicit detail. Like the elves, this retelling will leave readers ``just as pleased as a dog with two tails.'' (Picture book/folklore. 7-9)

``Once upon a ranch'' is how Lowell begins her enjoyable twist on the story of Little Red Riding Hood, starring a brave heroine who needs no lesson in self-reliance. First seen aiming a slingshot at a deadly snake, Little Red is instructed to take food to her sick grandmother. In the desert, she encounters the wolf, who is wearing a cowboy hat ``three shades blacker than a locomotive,'' and asks too many oily questions: ``What's your name, honey?'' and ``Where are you going, sugar? . . . Why not take a little ride with me?'' Little Red gives him the slip, only to rediscover him masquerading as her grandmother in the old woman's own bed. The wolf snatches her, but Grandma appears brandishing first an ax and then a shotgun to chase the villain off, complaining indignantly all the while: ``Breaking into my house! . . . Getting fleas in my bed!'' These two no-nonsense characters, with stick legs and huge cowboy boots, happily recap the victory while sitting on a fence munching sandwiches. There is humor in the pictures, with snakes among the cacti. The desert colors—mostly yellow, orange, and green—are painted in flat blocks of color in effective compositions that are deceptively simple while enhancing each scene's mood, whether pastoral or fearsome. A merry success, this Wild West fairy tale makes other versions look limp by comparison. (Picture book. 5-8)