Read Me a Story, Ink

When Rooster ducks into the barn to get out of the afternoon rain storm he is surprised to have his sneeze answered by a polite “God bless you, young man.” When he realizes it is Miz Mephitis, the skunk, he backs away just a far as he can. But his fear is replaced by curiosity when a right friendly discussion ensues and Rooster learns there is a lot more to skunks than he had imagined.

A very literary and delightful modern translation/adaptation of one of Charles Perrault’s most famous fairy tails wherein the youngest son inherits nothing of value except the family cat. But the cat, who is very fond or his young master, proves to be well more that just a cat. Bebooted and behatted, the clever feline finds his master both a kingdom and a wife. For all who love happily ever afters – and cats.

A dragon, fearing that he doesn’t exist, shares his concern with his friends the griffin, the unicorn and the sphinx. They can offer little to ease his worries but in the end, like Rousseau, he decides, someone imagines, therefore, I am.

A “what if” story about one of Cinderella’s coachmen who stays a man rather than regaining his mouse form at the stroke of midnight. Dazed and confused, he finds himself at the gates of a castle and discovers that, upon being given lowly work in the King’s stables, he has a knack as a horse whisperer.

The trouble with Trouble was he talked too much, even old skunk told him so. But when Trouble tried to tell everyone old skunk spoke to him, no one ever believed him again.

When death comes for Old Hark, the old man tells him to come again in the spring so he can feed his birds for one more winter. After some argument, Death offers to give him one more winter if he can answer three questions.

A story from Ms Banks' delightful anthology “The Magic Hare” in which the magic hare is snared by an orphan for dinner. The hare continues to suggest ingredients that would make him taste better but the final one is through the dark forest where the orphan has never gone. The hare leads the way, the orphan overcomes her fear and both live happily, but separately, ever after.

When Conal builds his castle on a hilltop he is not aware that he is intruding in the domain of the powerful fairy, Duine Sidhe. Cursed by the fairy, Conal and his family find no happiness until Conal’s son is befriended by a weaver who weaves a magic tapestry that can lift the curse.

After John Robert found a dragon’s egg down by the swamp, he and his Grandpa Riley kept it a secret from Aunt Bess whose life was too hard to care about such things. That is until it hatched, grew to 14 feet in two months and drank all the coal oil in the barn. Well, something had to be done. Lucky for John Robert and Grandpa Riley it was the flyin’ kind…

A story from Ms Banks delightful anthology “The Magic Hare” in which the magic hare hears tiny bells after every good deed and discovers they are applause from a sad, unnamed flower. In gratitude, the magic hare gives the flower a name, ‘harebell,’ or ‘Campanula rotundifolia.’