Portable Childhoods

I really enjoyed the stories in this collection, especially "In the House of the Seven Librarians". Neil Gaiman endorses Ms. Klages work in the introduction, and if that alone doesn't sell you on this book, try any of the tales here.

You know when you look at a case of petit fours and they're so elegant and perfect that you almost feel guilty eating them? The stories in Portable Childhoods were so delicious that I found I was pacing myself so I wouldn't finish too soon. Petit fours, though, aren't quite the perfect metaphor in this case. The stories are wonderful confections, but they're not saccharine. Perhaps a better comparison would be to those brightly inked images on the pages of illuminated manuscripts--small, intense, beautiful. I've already given away two copies....

Sixteen tales of varying length. Some are two pages long. Some are twenty-eight. Realistic sometimes, and sometimes deeply magical. In her Afterword, Klages says it best when she mentions that, "My stories have been described as fantasy, dark fantasy, science fiction, not science fiction, children's, mainstream, and/or horror. (Often in different reviews of the same story)." More telling is her final sentence, "Many of my stories appear to have happy endings." Appearances being, as they are, deceiving, the tales found in this book can be hopeless and heartless one moment and then bounce back with something that "appears" to be cheerful the next. With an Introduction from fellow adult/children's author Neil Gaiman, the book's stories last just as long as they need to, never overstaying their welcome or bringing you up too short, too soon. Their connections demand a little more work. The mix of fantasy, sci-fi, and realistic fiction is seamless here. It's all the more fun too when you think you're in one genre and then realize too late by the end that you're in another. A story where God is a kid who's helping his grandmother in the kitchen (he has, as J.B.S. Haldane once said, "an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.") is followed by the historical fiction tale "The Green Glass Sea." The amusing "Ringing Up Baby" where a child orders a baby sister with... let us say unusual properties is preceded by the mostly realistic, possibly sci-fi "A Taste of Summer" and all that it entails. For the most part they fit with one another. I've always thought that the arrangement of short stories is a difficult task in its own right. You want the book to flow from tale to tale rather than start and stop in a herky-jerky manner. The sole story I found out-of-place was a tiny two pager called "Be Prepared". A kind of To Serve Man but lighter. It's a fun story but I didn't quite see how it fit in with the rest of the book. Every author writes, to some extent, from what they know. The funny thing about Klages is that you can't figure out what she has conjured versus what she's experienced. Ms. Klages writes in such a way that you cannot separate her memories from her fictions. Everything, every single little thing, seems deeply drenched in fact. Dripping with it, I say. From the Afterword we learn that her little sister Sally was born with Down Syndrome. So you get an understanding for why the story "Guys Day Out" about a father and his Down Syndrome son, feels so right. Then again, Klages really nails the time traveling aspects of "Time Gypsy" too. And the feeling that you're flying when you snorkel as in "Flying Over Water". Many of these tales are about socially awkward girls who are comfortable with their own passions and interests to the exasperation of the mainstream adults around them. So how far do you feel comfortable assuming that you know an author from their works? With Klages you end up making all kinds of assumpt

Just finished reading Portable Childhoods and I am very sorry I couldn't make it last longer. There is other information here to give you an idea of the subject matter and what the stories are about, but what isn't noted is the tenderness (not in a sentimental or 'twee' manner) of observation that is present. Different stories moved me in different ways; none of them left me untouched. Very rich reading (that actually I made myself spread over several days to make it last). The stories and the charactors are memorable, often dealing with the complex mix of the desire to protect and at the same time allow independent growth in a relationship (between parent and child, lovers, past and future). This makes it sound stodgy - it's not - there is plenty of Magic, people find fairies or turn into tropical fish or time travel or.....maybe you should just find out for yourself. I hope I don't have long to wait for her next collection.

Ellen Klages is one of the best sf short story writers around. Portable Childhoods has all of her best stories, like "Basement Magic," (won a Nebula Award), and "The Green Glass Sea," that became the novel that won the Scott O'Dell Award. There's an introduction by Neil Gaiman too. A great collection. Boing Boing just said Klages is "The kind of sf writer that comes along once in a decade..." Very true.