Shadow Talk

Poet, playwright, and fiction writer Kelly (The Logic of the World) offers up a guileful collection of inventive variations on familiar narrative premises. The seeming transparence of his prose can be devilishly deceptive (“A tale is anything told. A fairy tale is something told... by fairies? About fairies? Pretending to be about fairies?”). An unlikely friendship between two animals in “The Ape and the Antelope” helps them outsmart hunters, while in “The Carpet,” a boy copes with his sadness by curling up on a rug that speaks soothingly to him in the voice of his dead mother. In “Green Silk,” young Emma acquires a special dress that turns her, at will, into a river. Occasionally, a childish premise receives an adult spin. In the title story, a boy has an illuminating conversation with his shadow, which shares wisdom and prescience about his future. In “The Three Latin Scholars,” three boys get caught in a web of confusing advice from a “silly old priest.” Pen and ink drawings by Emma Polyakov, suggestive and artfully composed, are perfectly in tune with the stories, which confidently inhabit a believable realm of fantasy and danger. This is impressive and delightful. (Nov.)