There are six very short stories in this little book with delightful, detailed illustrations by the late Janet Ahlberg. The stories cover a range of emotions and some of these ideas or themes might surprise you. Each story is named after a common expression such as jack pot or God knows. The first story is the one you see in the title. A magician makes a horse out of clothes and for a while the horse works pulling a milk cart but eventually he runs away. Over time all of his clothes are stolen so the horse goes back to the magician and because he is now invisible, he plays a few tricks on him until the horse works out he can take washing off clothes lines and find a new purpose in life as a pantomime horse.
The second story is very sad and poignant. A young girl decides to save parts of her life for later. As an old woman she opens her various boxes. For one day, for example, she is able to live as though she is eight all over again. Bit by bit, over time, she uses her Life Savings then sadly she dies but there is one box left. This box contains 'half an hour, age four.' The twist is clever:
"If ever you should feel the urge to act like a four-year-old (unless you are a four-year-old) you can blame it on the life savings of a woman in the fortune-telling business, with a little magic on the side. That's what I'd do."
The third story is called The Jack Pot and it is about a whole lot of boys named Jack who invade the home of a giant. The fourth story is called No Man's Land but it is not about a war. And the sixth story, God Knows, is the most complex. God is telling a bedtime story to a group of children and it is about the creation of the earth and some how all of history is squeezed in too.
My favourite story is Night Train which explains the delivery of night at the end of every day and also the delivery of sweet dreams. It reminded me of this book:
I am always on the look out for short story collections because they are so perfect to use with a class as writing inspiration and also I love to share these with casual (relief) teachers because they are easy to pop into a bag of teaching tricks for those days or times when no work has been left for a class.
I had a copy of The Clothes Horse and other stories in hardcover and in a larger format in my former school library but oddly I had not read it until last night. My copy comes from a charity book sale and as I have said previously, I am fairly sure this book has never even been opened it is in such pristine condition. The Clothes Horse and other stories was first published in 1987. My copy is a reprint from 2000.
Here is the full Kirkus review:
Six brief, whimsical stories with the air of extemporaneous bedtime tales told by a gifted parent, from the creators of Each Peach Pear Plum; each story is a logical (but zany) extension of a common phrase. "The Clothes Horse" has been made by a magician, out of clothes; but even after all the clothes are appropriated, one by one, he retains a tenuous existence. "Life Savings" are bits of various ages stored up by a 70-year-old woman, resulting in curious behavior when she gets them out again. In "The Jack Pot," a beleaguered giant catches troublesome Jacks till they form a football team and bother him more than ever. Then there are "No Man's Land," "The Night Train," and "God Knows" - God's answer to his own children when they ask him what else people invented (after spaceships and the Beatles) and what they did next. Janet Ahlberg's deft, carefully detailed illustrations add to the fun. Cozy, comic, wry and wise, these rather British morsels may not be to the taste of every American child, but they're certainly worth a try. The avuncular voice suggests a read-aloud, but the stories' brevity will also make them attractive for independent reading.
The Clothes Horse story which opens the book reminded me of this picture book:
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