Progressing Still through The Pinhoe Egg

Oh, it's a griffin story.

Cat, who in Charmed Life had the painful realization that the only person he thought loved him really didn't, now has two animals eager for his company.

Pleasant as that is to see, the griffin's arrival leaves me with mixed emotions. Because I have a baby griffin story in the works myself. The broken speech, the appetite, the quick growth--they all seem strangely familiar. Of course, I'm sure I could find all those elements in other books about magical creatures, and there are a lot of differences between Jones's approach and [ahem] my own:

“Amy! Roger! I brought home a surprise!” Aunt Mattie called from the front door. In one hand she carried her keys, in the other a brown paper sack. With her snow-covered sneakers she was pushing a big cardboard box.

Amy glanced up from drawing a cartoon of her sixth-grade teacher. A small fuzzy head poked over the edge of the box and looked back. The head had shiny gold eyes, a hooked beak, and sharp twitchy ears. Amy said, “Yow!” She dropped her sketch pad and hopped off the sofa to see the whole animal. It was the size of a cat, but skinnier. It had four legs, a thin frisky tail, and a small pair of silver wings growing from its feathery shoulders. “Aunt Mattie! What is it?”

“Whatever it is, we can’t keep it!” Amy’s sixteen-year-old brother Roger yelled from the laundry room. He jogged up the basement stairs to the front hall, then slouched against a wall. “So--what’s the surprise this time?”

“I closed the store early and bought a special dinner for all of us.” Aunt Mattie held out the bulging sack from Takimoto’s Restaurant. “Sashimi! That’s Japanese fish. Surprise!”

[Past postings--
18 May 2006: whispers of a new Chrestomanci book.
10 Oct 2006: first impressions.
12 Oct 2006: enter the horse.
14 Oct 2006: Joe bears watching.
16 Oct 2006: Cat escapes a cliché.

More Online Reviews I Have Refrained from Reading--
Cuoul
Word Candy]

Story opening copyright (c) 2006 by J. L. Bell