The Fireplace Companion

19 Short Stories Designed to Stimulate Your Imagination Small enough to read before you fall asleep and big enough to be captivating and exciting. This book is number 10 in the very successful Little Big Book series. We are proud to say that these stories live up to their promise to be little in size and big in content. Stories in this book are little in the sense that like one-dip ice cream cones on a hot day, they motivate you to consume them fast, yet big and thought provoking enough that they are like all-day lollipops you can come back to time and time again. The stories reflect the authors' combined 180+ years of experience and knowledge gleaned while fighting their way from poverty to riches. In writing this book they tried to turn the pages back to a much more peaceful and thoughtful time in America's history. A time when a mother and father were the heads of the family, not managers of motel. A time when the only things that got blown up were birthday balloons and Grandpa's ego. This book will serve two masters: the lovers of quintessentially dramatic short stories and the lovers of a Novelette - not so long that it requires concentrated dedication through the analysis of the primary characters - and yet variegated enough so that it is not simplistic. The stories, themselves, involve many different subjects including one author's visit to Germany for his father's birthday where they were forced to remain unexpectedly for over a year and a half after World War II broke out because they were unable to obtain steamship transportation back to the United States. Other stories are composed of pure fiction wherein the authors' imagination and innovation capture readers and lure them into a world of possibilities that stretch the mind to ask, why not? The Novelette takes the reader on a journey through life starting with how it is created, developed, expanded, is imprisoned, and breaks out of confinement when the guardian angel touches the h