Not As Great As The Inspiration Source

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick:  Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales by Various

Short Stories

What a gigantic disappointment this was!

I have loved the Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg for years. (Reading that book is a prerequisite for reading this one.) It's a book I have used in lessons, a book I have written about, a book that makes one dream and wonder.  I was hopeful that those pictures in the hands of such amazing authors would be a great read.

Not so.  Actually, the stories my middle school children have written about the Harris Burdick pictures were better than the ones in this collection.  I wanted them to be as fantastical as the illustrations they explained.  Alas, they were, without fail, just really mediocre. The authors who wrote them are amazing, but the stories they wrote aren't anything too spectacular.  The best ones would have to be Stephen King's and Lois Lowry's contributions (of course).  I wish I'd stopped with the original book and let my imagination soar.  Now, those illustrations are a bit spoiled for me by these stories that aren't nearly as great as what they attempted to describe.  This is not a terrible book, despite my harsh words; rather, it's just okay.  And, I expected so, so much more