The Singing Rock & Other Brand-New Fairy Tales h/c back

You have released me from the magic lamp. As a reward, I will grant you three wishes.
"Not four or five or six. THREE.
"Those are the rules.
"What is your first wish?"
...
HOP HOP HOP HOP HOP
...
"Would you like a treasure chest filled with gold?
"That's a popular wish."

In fact, we have been granted four fabulous fairy tales, rather than three or indeed four, five or six wishes. Not that the bemused frog in the opening 'Hop Hop Wish' would probably know what to do with those either... Although, he does quickly catch on and come up with an ingenious idea for dealing with the pesky genie.

In addition to our ambivalent amphibian we also have our titular crooning pebble, a pair of squabbling sorcerers and also a very perturbed portrait artist. Each story, scribed by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer is full of joy and snarky humour, as foolish follies are committed aplenty by all and sundry before happy endings finally ensue.

Simini Blocker's colourful art is equally full of life and frivolity. There's a real gentle glee and exuberance and most definitely an air of ever-present mischief which contributes to the fun.

I think my favourite story was probably the wiz-biz battle of wits involving the quiet, studious Athesius and the king's lazy sorcerer Warthius, who being a pretty talentless magician, hatches a nefarious if fairly transparent scheme to steal Athesius' spells by gifting him a parrot. Athesius of course, is not remotely fooled as Warthius gamely blunders on...

"What is it?"
"It's called a parrot."
"Isn't that the tropical bird that can repeat everything that people say?"
"Did I say parrot? It's... an ostrich."
"I thought ostriches were supposed to be enormous."
"It's a pygmy ostrich."
"A pygmy ostrich? They must be very rare."
"They are."

I think you can probably guess where this tail is going to go and what the moral of the story might be!