THE SKIN SPINNERS

Those who already know "Fable" ("Pity the girl with the crystal hair") from Cricket will have some idea of the sort of perky conceits Joan Aiken works up into rhyme and meter. The nimble wordsmanship can be pleasing—it's our loss if some of the funniest lines rely on English place names and pronunciations—and Aiken can produce pungently witty twists on classical myths or turn out a light, literate march on, say, the climb of the woodwinds to social prominence. On the other hand not everyone will be amused by such notions as electric garters (!) in "Socks and Shocks," mermaids crocheting in "Socks for the Sirens," the moon as "In the Sky" or even a lovelorn sewing machine who becomes "the sorrowful Singer of Newington Green." And by the time one comes to the arch and off-key musing on "The Bog People"—"ah, cover up her features/ of perdurable hide/misfortune's mummy/ the Bog Man's pride"—the numbing effect of so much inflexible cleverness begins to take hold. Aiken can be entertaining in small doses, but this overlong collection only exposes the forced and shallow impulses behind the verbal acrobatics.