1. It's rare to find a story told in a manner that every detail tells you something more about the character, that every detail advances the story. But in The Straight Story, that's exactly what a reader finds. Every action forms another layer of characterization, and by the time a reader completes the journey, he or she has connected to the people he or she met along the way.
2. With the majority of Hollywood flicks centering on scene after scene of action and special effects, it's novel to find a screenplay that moves along at 5 miles per hour. It is a slow trip, but offers quite a view.
3. I'm not in the school of thought that demands a life lesson before I consider a story worthwhile. But when you have an engaging story that manages to teach something but not preach something, it's a valuable find. It's a simple lesson, but corresponding with the theme I mentioned earlier, it's a simple lesson with complexity.
Quite simply, this is a beautiful story. I strongly recommend reading and watching.

The pictures depict a little boy looking for his red kite. As he looks he sees all the colors in the rainbow in the world around him.

The illustrations are lovely. The text is a sing songy type of text that makes this book easy to read and enjoy. The text is also very charming. For example: "A blue sky blue, a blue eye blue," on the page showing a blue sky adn siamese cats with dark blue eyes. "Well hello yellow bright and mellow..." and more.

Very enjoyable. A great review of the colors. A great way to introduce your child to the wide range of colors within a color.
Enjoy! I expect to for many years.

Mary Overton's first book, The Wine of Astonishment, succeeds on every level as a collection. Strung together like beads on a magical thread, these stories seize the reader with fresh insight from first page to last with a blessed lack of pretention. Overton's tales delve into the dark back niches of the human mind, where our strangest and most forbidden thoughts and impulses lie hidden. This collection gives us permission to embrace our restrained musings, to let our fancies take us where they will.

The characters in The Wine of Astonishment vary widely in age and social station, in the scopes of their desires and needs. What they all have in common is a sudden ability to see through the veil of prosaic acceptability that enshrouds the sparkling magic at the heart of life. Extraordinary events, as well as ordinary events seen through extraordinary eyes, have the power to change lives and perceptions, to force the realization that they want more from life upon those living it.

Overton's stories surprise the reader into new understanding. They rattle us out of our ruts to where we can see the magical potential that lies quietly behind the veil of our day-to-day routines and ways of seeing. First published in such renowned reviews as Glimmer Train Stories, The Southern Anthology and The Belletrist Review, the stories in The Wine of Astonishment are of the rare sort possessing the vitality to affect our awareness of the world where we live.

"Falcon Blood", "Toads of Grimmerdale", "Changeling", "Spider Silk", "Sword of Unbelief", "Sand Sister" - see my review of _Lore of the Witch World_.

"Toys of Tamisan" - This Ty-Kry story and its sequel, "Ship of Mist", can be found in Norton's Ty-Kry collection _Perilous Dreams_ (see my review for details). Although it appeared without its sequel in _High Sorcery_, it shows to best advantage with the other stories set in the same world. Briefly, Tamisan is an action dreamer - one of the fabled women who live only to create dreamworlds where clients can experience the adventures they desire. But unlike other dreamers, Tamisan isn't absorbed in the toys of her own creation - she's aware of the real world, and her new owner, as more than just raw material.

"Wizards' Worlds" - Formerly titled "Wizard's World", this one previously appeared in the collection _High Sorcery_ (see my review). It isn't a Witch World story; so far it stands alone. Craike, an Esper whose cover was blown in a setup, is no longer fleeing even for his life - just for the chance to die rather than face torture and forced betrayal of his comrades. But when he dives into a dry gorge in the desert, he surfaces in a raging river in another world, his desperation coupled with ESP having opened a gate.

"Mousetrap" - From _The Book of Andre Norton_. If you like Norton's Solar Queen stories, this one's setting has a similar flavor. Every bright boy with a new variety of glue wants to try it out on the mysterious sand statues of Mars - as with building a better mousetrap, it'll make a fortune if a statue can be handled and moved safely.

"Were-Wrath" - This doesn't seem to be a Witch World story, and bears no relation to the Were Riders. Lady Thra, a refugee from the south, has just seen the last of her men hanged by the lord of the valley below the forest. Compared to the horrors she's seen, a hut with carvings depicting the life of a young were-creature seems a small enough risk to run.

"By a Hair" - A stand-alone story from _High Sorcery_, set in a tiny European valley occupied in one war by the Nazis, only to descend into an even more terrible bondage under the Soviets. The surviving fighting men still remember the ways of guerilla warfare, but there's no defense against the treachery of an ambitious woman - or is there?

"All Cats Are Gray" - From _The Book of Andre Norton_, an SF story with a Solar Queenesque flavor.

"Swamp Dweller" - This was written for the 1st _Magic in Ithkar_ anthology, so if you want a proper grounding in the Ithkar universe, you should pick up a copy. It stands fine on its own, but it's more pleasant to see it in an all-Ithkar setting. (I'll refer you to that book rather than trying to describe Ithkar here, though.)

The 8 tales presented here are not direct quotes from the epic poem, but, are very true in spirit to the collected folk tales. Because of the difference in medium (prose versus verse) the characters have a chance to come to life - Louhi in all her majesty and power, the sad Aino, silly Kylli - times when women were bartered to the men with the most power. You get glimpses into their sad daily lives of hard work, and their all-to-few moments of joy. Who among us can imagine the pain of being a young lady at that time, knowing that you would likely be given to some old, powerful man in marriage? Or the agony of falling in love with someone only to be told that you would be forced to marry another?

For a Finnish-American, I would put this book high on my list of must-reads, mainly because of the clarity it brings to so many of the Kalevala heros and heroines. Culturally, it also gives a clear picture of what daily life for so many was like, and for some, is still like (in the eastern portions of Finland).