Review: Chicken Feet and the Firebird

My copy is battered and torn after almost 4 decades of being loved.

Anyone who has read my posts and books will probably have picked up that I have an affection for Russian Fairy Tales. This is due in no small part to the very first book I ever owned. It was given to me at birth, and it's a collection of beautifully illustrated fairy tales. The Frog Princess, Ivan, the Firebird... they are all here.

So when one of the authors I enjoy started writing her own version of Rus tales brought to the New World, I happily dove into them. They aren't long, but they are lovely little titbits of stories, each about Alexi, the soldier whose grandmother has a black cat with his own email account, and... I have enough trouble doing reviews of shorts without spoilers, much less a series of shorts which are interconnected. I have to wonder if Alma will be collecting all of them in one place once she is finished. I do hope so.

Chicken Feet and the Firebird is the third of the stories, and it involves a Boy Scout camping trip in the dry Colorado wilderness, and a forest fire, and a very cute Forest Ranger... and an appearance of Baba Yaga, Chernobog, and other nasties. I could wish it had been filled out more, but it is quickly paced and a fast read for a moment when you haven't much time to spare and don't want to be sucked into a whole novel.