The Albatross Around the Neck of Albert Ross: Strange Stories for Wild Children is a riveting and profoundly moving story collection uncannily in tune with the joys, heartbreaks and absurdity of everyday life. Through the main theme of flight, transformation and recognition these insightful and stunning stories plumb the soaring struggle of relationships in pivotal moments.

A boy on the edge of adolescence fears his next-door neighbor might be a witch; Emory Bennett and Henry Albright confront death, recovery and a friends ghost on their way to a Halloween spectacle; a ferociously independent rabbit takes charge and rewrites his easily led nephew’s homework; a sister and her little brother disappear into invisibility on Christmas Eve, only to see themselves for the first time.

Ranging from lush spice forests to a backyard garden, from a flight over the ocean in the grip of an albatross to a mother and son transforming into butterflies, The Albatross Around the Neck of Albert Ross, revolves around the endlessly complex, frequently surreal experience that is growing up.

Stories included:

• The Albatross Around the Neck of Albert Ross

• The Butterflies of Cranberry Chase

• Emory Bennett’s Halloween

• A Rocket Full of Pie

• The Appearance of Astra Eleanor Sprigg

• Edwin and the Nightingale, a modern imagining of
  Hans Christian Andersen’s Nattergalen

What invisible force rocks the empty cradle in the attic? How is it that a simple line of poetry can make a young rabbit shiver? And will seven-year-old Albert’s mother ever look up from her phone? These questions (and more), are resolved in this charming series of fairy tales. The stories descend on readers like the magic albatross in the title piece, swooping us up and carrying us into fantastical, funny and vividly imagined worlds that rhyme perfectly with our everyday world. Language play, puns and gorgeous mixed media illustrations help weave the spell that carries the reader into witches’ kitchens, princes’ gardens, and stories that feel strange and familiar at the same time. —Emily Anderson

Following his delightful Housecat Kung Fu: Strange Poems for Wild Children, Geoffrey Gatza returns with more in store for the wild children, this time in the form of six strange stories. In these wildly imaginative tales, we follow such characters as Albert Ross and his soaring adventures with an albatross, Emory Bennett investigating a ghost in his friend’s attic, and a rabbit who has to write a poem. This beautifully illustrated collection also includes a rich adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s Nattergalen. —Erica Buist

A story that can be read aloud by a parent to a kindergartner, then read back to a parent by a 10-year-old, The Albatross Around the Neck of Albert Ross, with its bold, enchanting artwork, has the power to appeal, astonish and entertain for years. Here, danger becomes breathtaking, daily life an exploration, and growing up is changed from mystery to magic. —Cris Mazza

These tales, often fantastical, always inventive and warm-hearted, are fables for grown-ups and children alike. “A Rocket Full of Pie,” to pick but one, is flavored with a dash of genius. If Geoffrey Gatza’s aim with this collection is to delight, he has achieved it marvelously. Read and be enchanted. —Patrick Chapman

At once tender, funny, woolly, and wild, Geoffrey Gatza’s lyrical stories evoke the eternal childhood of the imagination, making myths out of the tedium, heartbreak, and joy of growing up. Each one brings me right back to a moment in my own life that I thought I’d forgotten, allowing me to see things in a way I hadn’t thought of before. —Michael Kelleher

A Review of The Albatross Around the Neck of Albert Ross by Geoffrey Gatza