The Midnight Circus

If stories are a circus, then Jane Yolen is the ringmaster to rule them all. In her latest story collection, The Midnight Circus, readers are treated to a showcase of the strange, the obscure, and the dark musings of the author’s mind. This collection of short stories and poems is pleasing and greatly entertaining. From haunting angels to origin stories of unforgettable characters, and plenty of ocean and sea life, The Midnight Circus has something for everyone. Yolen is her descriptive and wild self, taking the reader on an experience they won’t soon forget. In these sixteen stories, we see the author at her unnerving best, with a polar explorer with a dark secret, a boy stripped of all he loves by a hated father, a wife who will face the depths of the ocean for her man, and much, much more. These are the fairy tales we know or think we know, told in ways that will surprise, amaze, and, ultimately, entertain us. Always beautiful, dark, and imaginative, but never sentimental, these are fairy tales for a new age.