"now that I can see the writing on the walls / I can finally understand I'm not lost at all"

Wonderment! Wonderment, I tell you.

Howard Pyle is best known today as the founder of the Brandywine School of artists, and as such the teacher of N.C. Wyeth among others. In his day, he was a bestselling author of pirate histories and novels in medieval settings, and his retelling of the Robin Hood stories, the first to rework the ballads into a unified cycle, remains in print today (all too often without his illustrations, to which I say, Prtt!). But what I grew up on was his fairy tales, rereading them to the point that they are etched into hindbrain as deeply as Just So Stories as exemplifying how wonder stories ought to be told. My first published story is one written in a Pyle-pastiche voice, and it's not the only one I've written. Pepper & Salt is the book of my boyish heart, but The Wonder Clock was also a treasure. And still is.

So imagine, if you will, my astonishment and delight to discover Twilight Land, a collection of tales I had never heard of. The structural conceit of this one is that each story is told in Mother Goose's taproom by a public domain character from another traditional wonder tale, such as Cinderella, the seven-at-one-blow tailor, and so on. Which provides an interesting perspective and commentary on the original stories, as well.

But enough -- if you'll pardon me, I have some wonder to repeatedly immerse myself in. Or, wonderment.

---L.