Big Mama Stories collects five edgy, satirical tales of wily tricksters for the 21st century. In ''Big Green Mama Falls in Love, '' Big Green Mama duplicates herself and discovers just how life-threatening a Big-Mama-sized case of love can be while the skwork learn that one cannot train a microbe to be patriotic. In ''Big Red Mama in Time and Morris, Minnesota, '' Big Red Mama is annoyed big-time when she discovers the Cretaceous has been invaded by an obnoxious human who has stolen a time-machine and decides that some information probably shouldn't be free, particularly since as a group, humans underestimated the damage they did and rarely took responsibility for anything. On the basis of these stories, the one thing you can say for sure is that Big Mamas' lives are never dull.

''Eleanor Arnason is a treasure, '' writes Andrea Hairston, the award-winning author of Redwood and Wildfire. ''Why? She knows her craft, respects her audience, and has a dazzling imagination. She entertains us with fearless writing.''