Unnatural Creatures

Do you like excellent stories? Beautiful books? Supporting the awesome literacy nonprofit, 826DC? If you like any of those things, and especially if you like all of them, I would like to call your attention to the wonderful new anthology, Unnatural Creatures,  edited by Neil Gaiman and Maria Dahvana Headley, for the benefit of 826DC.

Just to be clear, this isn't a review. I know and love too many of the people featured in the pages of Unnatural Creatures to even handwave at objectivity. But, now that you all have clutched the appropriate number of grains of salt in your hand, let me say that this book is a treat.

826DC is the home of The Museum of Unnatural History, and Unnatural Creatures is full of the stories about the kinds of things one might find in such a museum. While many of the stories are reprints (often, difficult to find or long out of print, so there are likely to be things new to you here as well), including Neil Gaiman's "Sunbird" and E. Lily Yu's "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees," there are also new works from Nalo Hopkinson, Nnedi Okorafor, Megan Kurashige, and Maria Dahvana Headley. The book is also gorgeously illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. It's a well-organized anthology - the stories support each other, as well as the theme, and an absolute pleasure to read.

By Kat Howard