THE FAITHLESS LOLLYBIRD AND OTHER STORIES

Clearly tale-spinning comes easily to Joan Aiken, who is adept at retracing traditional patterns with a knowing contemporary air, but most of these 13 entries (12 short stories and a poem) seem mere imitations of sentimental fairy tales, wonder tales, or whatever; and the evident fact that Aiken's stance is more sophisticated than her models' doesn't add dimension. In the sentimental vein, the lollybird of the title story is a weaver's overworked assistant who flies off to teach its now bereft master a lesson; elsewhere an old man gives his life for a loyal dog's ghost; another giving tree gives her all as a prince's foster mother; and a music-loving cat enlists the mice and birds of Venice to save an ailing, imprisoned (human) composer. Other stories, more purely in fun, deal with a king whose "backward" memory of past Sundays is replaced by a "forward" memory of future ones; with a sailor who escapes a shrewish wife for a charming mermaid; and—for those who can take the barrage of bubbles—with "how a lost football team came to be connected with the seven thoughtful magpies of Rumbury Cemetery, and what that had to do with John Sculpin's fondness for Carpathian Puff Pastry, and his mother's for auction sales, and how his cousin Sue and her pet carp came into the business, not to mention the ferocious Count Gradko and a cloud shaped like a polar bear." Deft, inventive—but only exercises.