A farmer discovers a bottomless hole on his property, into which his neighbors soon begin tossing their unwanted possessions. A glassmaker creates a glass heart for a girl in need of a new one, but its fragility proves a danger when she begins to fall in love. A woman gives birth to a teacup, much to the bafflement and disappointment of her husband: “instead of a son or daughter there was a new cup on the drying board. Many people visited in the following days, some family, some curiosity-seekers. They asked the husband questions he couldn’t answer. Would the teacup grow? Could the visitors drink from it?” In these 60 fables (none of which are more than a few pages long), Yourdon offers tastes of the fantastical: a horse small enough to get caught in a spiderweb, a gourd filled with geese, a man capable of turning a dog into a violin. There’s a magic darning bag in which anything—or nearly anything—is mended; a girl who keeps finding gifts under her pillow, including feathers and human teeth; and a milliner who attempts to sell a “glut” of out-of-fashion hats, only to discover the “glut” has come to life. Many of the fables play with the meanings people ascribe to inanimate objects. In one story, a man complains so much about his wife’s new chandelier that she decides to murder him with it. In another, a grandfather refuses to use the new indoor bathroom, preferring to stick with the outhouse, until he discovers a miniature carved wooden version of himself placed without explanation on the outhouse shelf. The best fables are those that take unexpected turns, like the particularly dark “The Gallows,” about three siblings’ ill-fated trip to a fair. Yourdon has a knack for crafting scenarios that trouble readers’ senses of cause and effect—there are no transparent morals here—in just such a way to ensure they will immediately proceed to the next one.