Books like Duffy and the Devil
By Harve Zemach
For the kid who loves a good trickster tale and roots for the underdog who talks (or bluffs) her way out of trouble. Sly, salty, and full of Cornish character — funny in a wink-and-a-nudge way.
A mistreated young girl is helped by her blue fairy godmother so she can attend the palace ball, where an endearing, somewhat overweight Prince Charming awaits.
A cheerful frog rows out onto the pond in a lily-pad boat to catch a fish dinner, but gets bitten on the toe by a water-beetle and nearly gulped down by a hungry trout.
An old woman known for her magic entrusts her helper with an everfull pasta pot but not its secret verse, so he sets it going alone — and can't make it stop.
A man and his little dog head out early one winter morning to learn how to ski, but a run-in with a curious moose sends them flying through the air and hanging above a snowy abyss.
A grandmother with a mountain of yarn and too many grandchildren shouts 'LEAVE ME ALONE!' and sets off past bears, goats, and aliens — all the way to the moon — just to finish her knitting in peace.
In 1783 France, a wildly ambitious crowd readies the very first hot-air balloon flight — except the passengers turn out to be a duck, a rooster, and a sheep, not people.
A boy named Ned races a thousand miles to a surprise party, and every stroke of good luck — a borrowed airplane, a handy parachute — flips into disaster and back again.
A boy too poor to buy the princess a birthday gift bakes her a cake instead, then faces trolls, bears, and gypsies while trying to deliver it to the castle in one piece.
After the gods fail again and again to create lasting humans across five different suns, Quetzalcóatl the Feathered Serpent alone refuses to give up, journeying to the underworld to retrieve the sacred bones of creation.
A clever spider man sets out to buy all the world's stories from the Sky God, who demands an impossible price: a fierce leopard, a fire-stinging hornet, and a fairy no one can see.
A very fussy little sister refuses carrots, mashed potatoes, and especially tomatoes — until her clever big brother renames every food on her plate into something wildly more interesting.
A witch grows the biggest pumpkin ever but can't pull it off the vine — and neither can the ghost, the vampire, or the mummy — until the tiniest creature of all comes up with an idea.
