Short Story Reviews and Recommendations by Mr Hutchinson https://padlet.com/ahn1/shortstory Post a link to the short story you are recommending, and include a 200 word explanation for why you personally recommend it. It doesn't have to be a story for adults (as you can see from my exemplar). en-us 2016-11-23 12:00:16 UTC 2021-02-12 14:14:46 UTC hello@padlet.com Mr Hutchinson's Pick ahn1 https://padlet.com/ahn1/shortstory/wish/1195849032 Hairy Maclary's Bone - by Lynley Dodd

I grew up with Hairy Maclary (he's from New Zealand) so this
one's a classic for me. Most people know the original book, Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy (a dairy, by the way, is what New Zealanders call a
newsagent or corner store—it's just a local place selling bread, sweets and
newspapers). In the first one, we're introduced to Hairy and his friends:
Hercules Morse, Bottomley Potts, Muffin McLay, Bitzer Maloney and Schnitzel von
Krumm (with a very low tum). The story goes like this: they all join up
together, wander down 'past the shops and the park at the far end of town',
then they run into Scarface Claw—a feral tomcat with a V-shaped slice missing
from his ear. Screech! Bam! Climax! Suitably freaked out, the dogs all scarper
off up the road to their respective hiding places.

It's a cool story in its easy simplicity, but I think Bone is better.
 
 Bone's storyline is also straightforward. The town’s butcher gives
Hairy Maclary the eponymous bone, and, understandably chuffed, Hairy starts to
make his way back to the dairy to enjoy the thing in peace. Unfortunately, all
his friends (Hercules Morse, Bottomley Potts, Muffin McLay, Bitzer Maloney and
Schnitzel von Krumm (with a very low tum)) spot that he has something worth
their attention, and, enviously licking their chops, they start trailing him.
They want Hairy's bone, and they're gonna get it.
 
In the action that follows, Hairy shakes off his pursuers one
by one, causally picking his way through an ever more challenging route to
Donaldson's Dairy, the route itself designed specifically to snag the
weaknesses of the other dogs (The gap through the sign is too small for
Hercules Morse; the hedge is too grabby for the fluff of Muffin McLay, etc.).
It's a hero narrative, one in which the protagonist never breaks a sweat, never
loses his cool, and never throws a punch (or a bite), so you respect him all
the more in the end. He's intelligent. He's calm. And his reward is that he
gets to enjoy what is rightfully his. 
 
Highly recommended. 

]]> 2021-02-12 10:21:35 UTC https://padlet.com/ahn1/shortstory/wish/1195849032 Pavlina's Pick https://padlet.com/ahn1/shortstory/wish/1196232815 The short story I decided to read was called The Tell Tale Heart. The Tell Tale Heart is about an old man , whos is killed by an insane individual due to his piercing eye putting the mad man off. Throughout the book, it seems like the narrator (the mad man) is talking to himself, and trying to reassure himself of the situation and what he did, I like that because it shows the themes of insanity within, and how his mind woks . I think the ending was the bit that surprised me the most. Although the man is very insane and clearly may have some sort of psychological condition, he still manages to show feelings of regret, and this feelings of regret come back due to  the fact that he thinks the old man's heart is haunting him.

I would recommend this book to someone who is intrigued by a a short psychological horror story, I think that it encompasses enough elements to show us the man's insanity, and it is also not any regular story. It has a unique twist, and I like the fact that the ending is not good. Horror has always been one of my favorite categories where that is in films, books, TV shows etc. and I think this story is very well made and fits the theme. I like how the author Edgar Alan Poe has managed to make this story enjoyable within a couple pages of work. This is a great story and to any horror fans out there I would recommend, it may not be the age-old ghost story but it has a nice twist of its own.]]> 2021-02-12 12:57:43 UTC https://padlet.com/ahn1/shortstory/wish/1196232815 Thalia's pick https://padlet.com/ahn1/shortstory/wish/1196241980 The Tell-Tale Heart - by Edgar Allan Poe 
 This story is about a mad man killing his elderly neighbour to then go through a guilty, horrific state of mind.  
This is how it starts:  
 The mad man plans to kill the neighbour because his eye is unsettling. However, it seems that he does this as a reflection of his madness. He wants the world to recognise it. This story is quite haunting... especially when the mad man starts to taunt the elderly neighbour in the dark until he, what it seems like, has a stroke. The mad man chops up the dead neighbour's body parts and puts them underneath the flooring boards. 
After a while, three police officers tell the mad man that there has been a shriek heard in the middle of the night by a neighbour - The officers suspect foul-play. They invite themselves in and the mad man tries to act as innocent as possible. He sits directly on top of the flooring where the deceased body parts are lurking under. By this time, the mad man is in pure bliss and thinks that they’ll never catch him.  As they chat and chat more, the mad man starts to get irritated. He starts to wonder why the three men aren't going. He gets paler by the second. 
 
And then, he starts to hear the beating of the deceased neighbour's heart. 
He tries to rub off the feeling of shock and hopes it's all in his head. But he cannot fight the feeling of them possibly being able to hear it. 
He starts to panic while the three officers laugh and mingle. He thinks that they're laughing at how stupid he was to think that he could get away with it. He taunts himself while the heart of the elderly man continuously beats louder and louder and then screams out the truth.  
 
It is a quite chilling story because of how easily he planned it all out and immediately did it. The ending proves that the mad man wasn't as powerful and unstoppable as he wanted himself to be... possibly just crazier. 
 
 
I highly recommend this story for people who enjoy creepy themes. 
It's very psychological and it shows the mad mans insanity throughout it. 
I love how the author, Edgar Allan Poe was able to make such a short story so curiously exciting.
The twist is what makes this story even more worth reading.
https://maggiemcneill.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/the-tell-tale-heart.pdf
]]> 2021-02-12 13:01:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ahn1/shortstory/wish/1196241980