Moon Rising

Except for the talking turtle, the author's 2022 novel, Merlyn the Magic Turtle: A Story of Love and Justice, was entirely realistic. By contrast, this volume of stories and poems is based firmly in fantasy.

Talking animals and insects, numerous gnomes, and even talking vegetables are among the many colorful characters. Mother Earth gets psychiatric advice, there is a time-traveling sailing ship, and a trickster is tricked.

"Antigravity in the Graveyard," by far the longest story, features a nerdy physics professor and his pretentious nemesis, the dean of the department. The latter gets his comeuppance, as it were, in a most appropriate way.

Jewish mothers figure prominently: sometimes cooking, often criticizing or complaining, but always loving and loved. One man's mother even proves that clothes do make the man-or in this case, the woman, one with super powers and devastating culinary skills.

The author is an avid gardener, and vegetable gardens are featured in many of the stories. Granted, the non-human characters in those spaces are far from realistic. Among them are a flying deer, a bargaining ant, and even a talking beet. But all are described in such loving detail that the reader can almost imagine that they did indeed appear to the author.

So, for at least a little while, slip the bonds of everyday life and let yourself be transported to these many scenes of adventure: most of them humorous, a few of them melancholy, and all of them brilliantly imaginative.