Publishers WeeklyDickinson, a two-time Carnegie Medal winner, continues his series of short story collections based on the four elements; the two previous volumes were coauthored with his wife, Robin McKinley. Many of the six tales within are drawn from mythology. In the powerful "Troll Blood," a college student named Mari who, according to family tradition, is distantly descended from trolls, becomes strangely interested in the study of an obscure Old Norse manuscript. In "Ridiki," a Greek boy, Steff, who mourns the loss of his dog, is drawn, like Orpheus, to a cave with the forbidding name of Tartaros. The remarkable "Wizand" introduces a hitherto unknown magical symbiont responsible for the creation of witches, whose "closest analogy.
