I didn't buy this book for the Curriculum Library when I first heard of it--I thought it was probably more of the same for the Twilight and House of Night fans--and besides, we have enough YA books for our pre-service English teachers. I decided to purchase it when it was an entrant in the Battle of the Kids' Books over at SLJ this March. Even then I was put off by the creepy cover. But I am so glad I finally gave it a chance. The first of the three novellas is based on the haunting poem "Goblin Market," the second "Spicy Little Curses Such as These" touches on religious concepts in Hinduism, and the third, "Hatchling" has some connections with Zoroastrianism. All three themes were intriguing to me. "Goblin Fruit" is possibly my favorite, in part because it is based on a Christina Rosetti poem, and also because the writing drew me in and kept me there until the finish. Here's how it begins: "There is a certain kind of girl the goblins crave. You could walk across a high school campus and point them out: not her, not her, _her_. The pert, lovely ones with butterfly tattoos in secret places, sitting on their boyfriends' laps? No, not them. The girls _watching_ the lovely ones sitting on their boyfriends' laps.
Yes.
Them.

"Spicy Little Curses" was also special to me because of its connection to Hinduism, but also because of the perfection of the drawings by Jim di Bartolo which precede the novella and hint at its story. And third, because the exquisitely suspenseful but painful shadow of the deadly curse under which Anamique lives, much like _Sleeping Beauty._

In the third story "Hatchling," Esme suddenly wakes up with one eye blue, and the reason why unfolds slowly and excruciatingly over the entire story. One of the Druj, the soulless demons who live forever, discovers the path to regain at least part of their souls. And Esme is ineluctably involved without understanding. The language is breathtaking and the reader is compelled from the start to find out the answers to the mysteries that unfold over the course of the novella. Some of the answers are only hinted at, still shrouded in mist. Some of the scenes I find harrowing, (the frantic beasts, the hapless kittens, the brutal way the humans are taken over by the Druj) and I would recommend this book only for older teens (and older!). But for them it is worth it. The Lexile number is 990.