Dachshund droids, mad crones, shapeshifting children, a plethora of witches, dragonstalkers, familiars, slithering eels and, of course, bats, flit and fly through these pages, aided and abetted by Kathleen Jennings's deft and inspired pencil drawings. Stray Bats is a glorious miscellany of vignettes based on poems by Australian women. While some of the pieces hie close to the originals in form and theme, some stray far, far from them even as Lanagan delights in playing with language, rhyme, and rhythm. This could be the perfect gift for that slightly otherworldly person in your life-or for yourself, when you need a moment of magic, a dip into darkness, a spark of light. For the reader who would like to explore further, there are a list of poems that inspired the author and notes on where those poems might be found.