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Story Time Reviews: A Japanese Fairy Tale

Lynette M Burrows

Story Time Reviews a Japanese Fairy Tale told on the Myths and Legends podcast, episode 161 titled Japanese Folk Lore: Karma.  The orginal story, “The Old Woman Who Lost her Dumpling,” may come from Hearn, Lafcadio, translator. Japanese Fairy Tales: The Boy Who Drew Cats. Tokyo: T. Hasegawa, 1898. This podcast includes two stories. “The Old Woman who lost her dumpling” is the first story told on the podcast. Duration 16 minutes and 14 seconds.  The Story Making Dumplings Making Dumplings. The old women liked to make dumplings and laugh. One day she drops a dumpling to the floor. It rolls through a small hole in her home’s floor. She reaches into the hole and the dirt beneath her cracks open. She drops. She survives a long drop and though the land is weird, she sees her dumpling rolling away and she runs after it. She stops and catches her breath leaning against a Jizo-san statue. (Weiser gives us an aside at this point explaining the relevance and meaning of a Jizo-san statue in Japanese culture.) The statue warns her not to follow her dumpling because a wicked Oni lives down there, who eats people. But the old woman doesn’t heed […]

Flash Fiction: For Better or Worse

Lynette M Burrows

Marriage is meant to be a lifelong commitment. But a lifetime has many challenges. That’s why the older marriage vows included the phrase “for better or worse.” This poignant story tells how a couple handles their challenges. For Better or Worse Lynette M. Burrows They came in together. Gray-haired, bent, similar in size and shape, they held hands. She laughed at his lame jokes. Her laughter lit his face with a sun-bright smile. They shuffled up to the emergency room’s front desk.  The ER nurse put him in a wheelchair and rolled him back to the triage room. She listened to their concerns, then checked his blood pressure and listened to his heart and lungs. She told them there were no rooms right now but there would be soon.  They returned to the waiting room and sat in hard plastic chairs near the interior doors marked staff only. And they waited. His jokes slowed and her laughter grew strained. The nurses at the desk seemed to pay them no mind as they dealt with the people coming into the ER in ones and twos, and whole families. And after a while, the nurse called his name. She took the old man in […]

Story Time Reviews Ray Bradbury

Lynette M Burrows

Story Time Reviews remembers that special time when an adult reads to a child and recognizes that as a grown-up, we need to reward ourselves with a story time now and then. This blog series will offer reviews of stories read aloud. Today Story Time Reviews Ray Bradbury. LeVar Burton Reads Mr. Burton, an actor, presenter, and author, has long been an advocate of reading. He hosted the long-running PBS show for children, Reading Rainbow (1983-2001 and 2002-2006). He started his podcast, LaVar Burton Reads in 2017. (Read his Wikipedia bio here.) In every episode of his podcast, he reads a short story aloud. He says the only thing these stories have in common is that he loves them.  The Author Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and poet. Mr. Burton says Bradbury shaped the way we see the world today. Bradbury’s stories, words, and vision definitely influenced many readers and science fiction and fantasy fans. You can read more about Ray Bradbury on his website or in my review of The Martian Chronicles. Story Time Reviews “The Great Wide World Over There” is part of the anthology Golden Apples of the Sun. […]