Best Selling Books by Harve Zemach

Duffy and the Devil was a popular play in Cornwall in the nineteenth century, performed at the Christmas season by groups of young people who went from house to house. The Zemachs have interpreted the folk tale which the play dramatized, recognizable as a version of the widespread Rumpelstiltskin story. Its main themes are familiar, but the character and details of this picture book are entirely Cornish, as robust and distinctive as the higgledy-piggledy, cliff-hanging villages that dot England''s southwestern coast from Penzance to Land''s End. The language spoken by the Christmas players was a rich mixture of local English dialect and Old Cornish (similar to Welsh and Gaelic), and something of this flavor is preserved in Harve Zemach''s retelling. Margot Zemach''s pen-and-wash illustrations combine a refined sense of comedy with telling observation of character, felicitous drawing with decorative richness, to a degree that surpasses her own past accomplishments. Duffy and the Devil is a 1973 New York Times Book Review Notable Children''s Book of the Year and Outstanding Book of the Year, a 1974 National Book Award Finalist for Children''s Books, and the winner of the 1974 Caldecott Medal.

A horrible thing is coming this way Creeping closer day by day-- Its eyes are scary, Its tail is hairy... I tell you, Judge, we all better pray! Anxious prisoner after anxious prisoner echoes and embellishes this cry, but always in vain. The fiery old Judge, impatient with such foolish nonsense, calls them scoundrels, ninnyhammers, and throws them all in jail. But in the end, Justice is done--and the Judge is gone. Head first! Harve Zemach''s cumulative verse tale is so infectious that children won''t be able to avoid memorizing it. And Margot Zemach''s hilarious pictures are brimming with vitality as well as color.

When the naive second son loses his family''s magic heirlooms to the selfish queen, he discovers by accident a way to recover them.

Russian tale of Ivan the Fool who finds an island of salt, returns home from the sea on the back of a giant, and ultimately marries a princess.

Young Eliza Lou considers some unusual sleeping arrangements after suggesting that her mother buy her a china doll by trading her father''s featherbed.

Two brothers set out to capture a one-eyed man to display in the marketplace.

A young man is haunted by nightmares until a witch gives him a magic formula for untroubled sleep.

A skeptical judge discovers that the five people he had put in jail were telling the truth after all.

Cunning Master Dabble promises to paint lifelike pictures for the king but a servant boy catches on to his trickery.

Ivan the Fool, youngest son of a merchant, barters the cargo of his ship for a princess and a fortune. Ivan the Fool makes his fortune by bringing salt to a place where it is unknown. The king is delighted with the wonderful new taste in his food, and of course, Ivan''s reward is to marry the beautiful princess, and live happily ever after.

When his new harmonica just won''t sound right, little Peter listens to the music of Vienna--to the music of the opera and the hurdy-gurdy and other tunes--while trying to find his own special tune.

A story of Grandmother, Grandfather, Granddaughter, daughter-in-law, and son, and everything that goes wrong. This builds one wrong thing after another.