In retrospect so many of the books I loved from a young reader until today were published under the Firebird imprint, and I feel incredibly lucky to have been contemporaneous with what were clearly great years for their publishing program. Just looking at the list of books that takes up the first two pages here — Lloyd Alexander, Nancy Farmer, Sylvia Engdahl, Brian Jacques, Robin McKinley, Tanith Lee, etc — and then considering the additional star power of this anthology — Charles Vess, Garth Nix, Diane Wynne Jones! — and you’re looking at the backbone of my taste. She writes in the introduction that she started the imprint when she realized that young readers who start with SF/F tend to become lifelong readers, and in my case her thesis definitely worked. Firebird books gave me a great foundation to realize the magic of reading (especially The Eye, The Ear, and The Arm! I am a die-hard fan of that book).
Sharyn November’s editorial vision in this anthology makes it a readable whole, with no weak story in the bunch. They all flow into each other very nicely, with an author’s note after each story giving a little insight. I also liked the inclusion of a Charles Vess comic, which points to November’s foresight into the growth of the graphic novel market. It’s hard to pick a standout story here, because the anthology really does work as a delightful whole. Even when I just flipped through it to try to narrow it down, I just started listing all of the stories! It was like a warm hug of great fiction. I loved it and apparently there were two follow up anthologies, so I will have to get my hands on those. Super highly recommended! My used copy was only about $8 so it’s luckily not rare.