THE DEVIL'S OTHER STORYBOOK
illustrated by Natalie Babbitt
Rejoice! Here are ten more stories about the devil to add to Babbitt's wonderful first collection, The Devil's Storybook. Mostly situated in the life hereafter, where Babbitt pictures an indolent Satan administering poetic but not particularly gruesome justice, each story is told with wry humor and the consummate skill of a stylist who uses colloquial speech with economical, devastating precision. Descriptions are delightful—a singer, Doremi Faso, has ". . . the shape and weight of a walrus and the ego of several roosters"; a camel bound for Bethlehem ". . .made a great, glad, bubbling sound like a trumpet full of milk. . ." And ironies abound: in one delicious story, a pedant and a burglar argue in two equally incomprehensible patois before being given a truly just punishment—a simple sentence. Begging to be quoted, to be read aloud, to be told, these deceptively direct, wise tales should delight readers and listeners alike—devil stories are always among the most popular, and these are winners.