Stories for the Nighttime and Some For the Day by Ben Loory

This book is modern fables for adults, and children too. It's beautifully absurd and vividly coiled up like a glimmering neon snake. Writing that's either leaked out of your dreams or will leak into your dreams. Jewels. Iridescent lichen. Invisible crowns slathered with bright yellow paint. Walking trees. Flying boys. A TV that makes an opera about Winston Churchill. If it can happen, it will happen.

I'm babysitting my niece. "Read me a bedtime story!" End of the first story. "Another!" Next up, the story of a man who finds a diabolical creature hiding at the bottom of a swimming pool. "Another!" Then, the tale of an expedition that hunts sea monsters, "ANOTHER!" "Alright, settle down, you've got school in the morning."

The kiddo was wound up. "ANOTHER!" I left the room, came back with The Divinci Code, which we'd been using under an off kilter table leg. I opened it; read aloud. After one page, I heard this "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz," so I went to the kitchen. Read Stories for Nighttime. When it was done, I said to myself, "Another." -Bud Smith