The Serpentine Library: Recommend Me (1)

Recommend Me is hosted by Kate at The Neverending Shelf

This is how Kate decscribes Recommend Me:

Recommend Me is a weekly event in which participants will pick one of their all time favorite reads to share. This could be a book that your read yesterday or years ago.

To play along, grab a favorite read and tell us about it. You can include your thoughts about the novel, its summary, your favorite memory related to the novel... the possibilities are limitless. If you are up for a challenge, you can also include:

•Your review of the novel
•Links to others' reviews of the novel
•Recommending to a general group of readers or if you want to be extra daring, to specific reader friends

Read more about this meme at http://www.theneverendingshelf.com/

One of my favorite things about being a librarian is recommending books to patrons. I love when they come in and say "I loved Diary of a Wimpy Kid, do you have any other books like that" or "I just read a book by John Green, what other authors are good to read." My favorite question this week was, "Can you recommend a book that isn't dark like Twilight, I want something lighter but more real." Finding other books or authors for someone to read is fun, especially when they come back saying they enjoyed the recommendation and want more books. So when I saw this at The Neverending Shelf, I thought I would give it a try.

This week I recommend:

Instead of Three Wishes: Magical Short Stories by Megan Whalen Turner

Originally Published by Greenwillow Books in 1995

Summary from Goodreads: A leprechaun is sighted in a small town in New Hampshire. An inner-city boy goes back in time to prehistoric Sweden. There's a ghost living on the highest level of a huge factory--but what she sees is her own house. This collection of stories by 1997 Newbery Honor-winner Megan Turner is utterly delightful [and] perfectly crafted (Kirkus Reviews)--after reading them, you'll never see the world the same way again.

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By now, most of this blog's readers know that I adore The Queen's Thief Series (or Attolia books) by Megan Whalen Turner. I was introduced to them by a work colleague and fell in book love after reading the first one (The Thief). Usually once I find an author I enjoy reading, I try to read as much by that author as possible. So after I read The King of Attolia, Deirdre showed me Megan's short stories. I don't read short stories that often, but thought I would give Instead of Three Wishes a try. I was not dissapointed. Each story deals with some sort of magical creature or situation. My favorite story in this collection is "The Baby in the Night Deposit Box." It is about a baby that gets left in a bank's night deposit box, who is then raised by the bank staff and eventually finds her real family.

Other books by Megan Whalen Turner: