THE THIEVES AND THE RAVEN

Again three brazen robbers menace the countryside--not a steal but definitely discomfitting re the first when a carriage is intercepted, the princess and her nurse are kidnapped. . . and never reappear. More amusing than the robbers' increasingly audacious crimes (even than their offkey singing that keeps the animals awake) are the futile attempts of the populace to capture them. Slickest of all is their undoing, stemming from their appetite for ravens' eggs ""and sometimes even a baby raven"": Wenzel, king of the ravens, steals the watch of one, which sets them to fighting, then caw-caws, which makes them think ""Cops, cops"" and sets them to running. There's a jauntiness about the whole, names (namely Fobrokel, Spobrokel and Lefty) that rate a separate laugh, and a sly last line; also Janosch's typically brash, cheerful pictures. Hardly distinctive but certainly entertaining.