2 Books Like All the Fabulous Beasts

This book was CREEPY, but also so vividly written, and so strange, that I couldn't put it down. It sort of reminded me of how the Disney fairytales we are told now are just more polished versions of much darker, more disturbing tales. This book unflinching brings fairytales that are disturbing, not dainty, to life, and lets us watch in horror as they slowly bleed into our world.

A young adult take on Saki's spiteful short story 'Srendi Vashtar', 'The Bone Dog' was written in the 80's when witchcraft was still primarily a pastime for the working class. During school holidays, Sarah is shipped off to stay with her gran and her uncle, both of whom are rumoured by the wider family to be witches. Lacking friends of her own age and bullied by the girls next door, Sarah yearns for a pet to keep her company. And soon her wishes are granted, although not exactly in the way she expected. This book has a great sense of children's limited geography, the romanticism and detail that becomes applied to a restricted area, here the back gardens and alley ways of the neighbourhood. Also, this is no rose-tinted, sentimental evocation of childhood, the author is well aware of the anger and vindictiveness that can often simmer beneath the experience.… show more.