The Last Selchie Child
THE LAST SELCHIE CHILD
A Midsummer Night’s Press 2012
ISBN-10: 097942089X
ISBN-13: 978-0979420894
The Last Selchie Child started with a bunch of my fantasy/fairy tale poems that had been individually published but never all collected in a book. I thought about a book of them for some time. Many were not appropriate for young children because they often touch on some sexual element in the original tale. Fairies by and large, were seen as difficult, amoral, and very alluring. But then Lawrence Schimel, who had published a couple of broadsides of my poems years and years ago, started his small press up again and was doing hand-sized (ie quite small and gorgeous) editions of poems. I asked, he jumped at the chance, and so the book began.
Accolades:
- “The Last Selchie Child” has been nominated for the 2013 Elgin Award for the best speculative poetry full-length book published in the preceding year.
Around the web:
- Read the publisher’s blurb.
- Once Upon a Blog has a few facts wrong but is still very excited about the book. (For one, Greyling is not a novel but a picture book!)
What reviewers have said:
- “I’m a longtime fan of Yolen’s, but I don’t think you have to know anything about her work to appreciate what she is doing here with the foundations upon which fantasy is built, though a working knowledge of myth, folk stories, and fairy tales might help. What I know for certain is that this slim collection gives us one of America’s national treasures working at the top of her form.”—Charles deLint in F&SF
- “This tiny book of tales, published in a 6×4 format, grows larger and larger with each reading of its magical poems.”—Malcolm’s Round Table
- “Jane Yolen is one of our venerable masters, both of fiction and poetry. She won the Rhysling award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association in 1993, as well as many other awards, some far more prestigious. Yolen was named SFPA Grand Master in 2010. It is always a pleasure to open one of her books for the first time. . .It might be needless to say I think you should buy this book. But just in case, I’ll say it. You really should buy this book. You won’t be sorry.”—David C. Kopaska-Merkel for StarLine