A review by coolcurrybooks
Not So Stories by Joseph Elliott-Coleman, Adiwijaya Iskandar
4.0
Not So Stories is a collection that’s working off the legacy of Kipling’s famous Just So Stories, which is a classic children’s book deeply rooted in colonialism. Not So Stories addresses this problematic legacy by creating an anthology of fable-like stories all by authors of color, from the colonized nations Kipling was writing about.
I know I read Just So Stories as a child, but I can hardly remember anything about it. As a result, some of these stories may have nuances or connections to Kipling’s work that I am missing.
The collection opens with “How the Spider Got Her Legs” by Cassandra Khaw, which was excellent. Cassandra Khaw was one of the reasons I picked up Not So Stories to begin with, as I am a big fan of her work. As I would expect, the writing is absolutely lovely. It’s a very emotional story that’s thematically centered around motherhood.
“Queen” by Joseph E. Cole was another story I highly enjoyed. The story follows a lioness who’s telling her life’s tale, which involves being captured by humans and forced to fight other lions in an arena. The story as a whole works as a metaphor for slavery, with the language and description being such that you don’t immediately realize the narrator is a lion.
“How the Ants Got Their Queen” by Stewart Hotson is another fable that uses animals to explain colonialism and oppression. It sort of that story by E. Lily Yu — “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” — which deals with some of the same concepts, only using bees and wasps instead of ants and anteaters. Still, I thought “How the Ants Got Their Queen” was a strong addition to Not So Stories.
My other favorite of the anthology was “The Cat Who Walked by Herself” by Achala Upendran, which I strongly suspect is drawing off of a Kipling story I can’t remember. In this story, Woman lives a carefree life with her friends Dog, Horse, and Cow, singing and wandering the forest, until she’s kidnapped by Man. With Cat’s help, she plots a way to be free. (TW: self harm)
I didn’t find any of the other stories in the collection as strong. I was really looking forward to Jeannette Ng’s story (her name is part of why I picked up Not So Stories), but “How the Tree of Wishes Gained Its Carapace of Plastic” left me cold. Maybe I loved her book so much that my expectations were too high? “How the Tree of Wishes Gained Its Carapace of Plastic” tells local history through the focus on a tree where people attach their wishes.
“Best Beloved” by Wayne Santos wasn’t one of the best stories in Not So Stories, but I think it’s in the top half. Unlike some of the others, I don’t know if it could be considered a children’s story. Maybe young adult? Anyway, the story follows Seah Yuan Ching, who keeps the restless undead away from Hong Kong but is distracted from her duties by her British lover, Adam. As a reader, it takes no time at all to figure out that Adam’s full of shit…. and then he turns out to be even more rotten than you suspected.
Most of the other stories in Not So Stories were fairly forgettable. “Samsā ra” by Georgina Kamsika is about a girl who realizes she’s been rejecting her own heritage in order to appeal to a white culture. “The Man Who Played with the Crab” by Adiwijaya Iskandar follows a father and daughter who are guardians of their goddess but who are threatened and endangered when a white, Kipling-esque adventurer shows up, determined to kill the goddess. “How the Snake Lost Its Spine” by Tauriq Moosa is what it says in the title. “Serpent, Crocodile, Tiger” by Zedeck Siew is a confusing intermingling of three related stories that ultimately felt too long. “Strays Like Us” by Zina Hutton is about Bastet in modern day USA taking in a stray kitten. “There Is Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang” by Raymond Gates is a creepy little story that I can’t see how fits in with the collection’s themes of Kipling and colonialism. “How the Simurgh Won Her Tale” by Ali Nouraei uses the frame story of a grandfather telling his sick granddaughter Lilly stories as she receives dialysis. “How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off” by Paul Krueger takes a very different approach from the others, having camel try to organize other animals to demand action and reforms from HR.
Not So Stories isn’t a great collection — the ratio of stories I loved to stories I was “eh” about wasn’t enough for that. But it’s not a bad collection either. I found the aim of the collection admirable, and there’s still great stories to be had here.
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
Review from The Illustrated Page.
I know I read Just So Stories as a child, but I can hardly remember anything about it. As a result, some of these stories may have nuances or connections to Kipling’s work that I am missing.
The collection opens with “How the Spider Got Her Legs” by Cassandra Khaw, which was excellent. Cassandra Khaw was one of the reasons I picked up Not So Stories to begin with, as I am a big fan of her work. As I would expect, the writing is absolutely lovely. It’s a very emotional story that’s thematically centered around motherhood.
“Queen” by Joseph E. Cole was another story I highly enjoyed. The story follows a lioness who’s telling her life’s tale, which involves being captured by humans and forced to fight other lions in an arena. The story as a whole works as a metaphor for slavery, with the language and description being such that you don’t immediately realize the narrator is a lion.
“How the Ants Got Their Queen” by Stewart Hotson is another fable that uses animals to explain colonialism and oppression. It sort of that story by E. Lily Yu — “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” — which deals with some of the same concepts, only using bees and wasps instead of ants and anteaters. Still, I thought “How the Ants Got Their Queen” was a strong addition to Not So Stories.
My other favorite of the anthology was “The Cat Who Walked by Herself” by Achala Upendran, which I strongly suspect is drawing off of a Kipling story I can’t remember. In this story, Woman lives a carefree life with her friends Dog, Horse, and Cow, singing and wandering the forest, until she’s kidnapped by Man. With Cat’s help, she plots a way to be free. (TW: self harm)
I didn’t find any of the other stories in the collection as strong. I was really looking forward to Jeannette Ng’s story (her name is part of why I picked up Not So Stories), but “How the Tree of Wishes Gained Its Carapace of Plastic” left me cold. Maybe I loved her book so much that my expectations were too high? “How the Tree of Wishes Gained Its Carapace of Plastic” tells local history through the focus on a tree where people attach their wishes.
“Best Beloved” by Wayne Santos wasn’t one of the best stories in Not So Stories, but I think it’s in the top half. Unlike some of the others, I don’t know if it could be considered a children’s story. Maybe young adult? Anyway, the story follows Seah Yuan Ching, who keeps the restless undead away from Hong Kong but is distracted from her duties by her British lover, Adam. As a reader, it takes no time at all to figure out that Adam’s full of shit…. and then he turns out to be even more rotten than you suspected.
Most of the other stories in Not So Stories were fairly forgettable. “Samsā ra” by Georgina Kamsika is about a girl who realizes she’s been rejecting her own heritage in order to appeal to a white culture. “The Man Who Played with the Crab” by Adiwijaya Iskandar follows a father and daughter who are guardians of their goddess but who are threatened and endangered when a white, Kipling-esque adventurer shows up, determined to kill the goddess. “How the Snake Lost Its Spine” by Tauriq Moosa is what it says in the title. “Serpent, Crocodile, Tiger” by Zedeck Siew is a confusing intermingling of three related stories that ultimately felt too long. “Strays Like Us” by Zina Hutton is about Bastet in modern day USA taking in a stray kitten. “There Is Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang” by Raymond Gates is a creepy little story that I can’t see how fits in with the collection’s themes of Kipling and colonialism. “How the Simurgh Won Her Tale” by Ali Nouraei uses the frame story of a grandfather telling his sick granddaughter Lilly stories as she receives dialysis. “How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off” by Paul Krueger takes a very different approach from the others, having camel try to organize other animals to demand action and reforms from HR.
Not So Stories isn’t a great collection — the ratio of stories I loved to stories I was “eh” about wasn’t enough for that. But it’s not a bad collection either. I found the aim of the collection admirable, and there’s still great stories to be had here.
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
Review from The Illustrated Page.