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ZERALDA'S OGRE by Tomi Ungerer

ZERALDA'S OGRE

by Tomi Ungerer

Pub Date: Aug. 30th, 1967
ISBN: 1570982686
Publisher: Harper & Row

More terrifying even than The Three Robbers, but just as easily tamed, is the ogre who dines on little children until converted by the exquisite cookery of little Zeralda; innocent that she was, she felt only pity for the poor hungry giant and fed him so well that he hired her for the castle kitchen. "Banquets were held for neighboring ogres and ogresses (and) from that day forward they lost all their taste for children." (In an anti-climax, Zeralda, now grown to beautiful maidenhood, is wooed and wed by the ogre.) The illustrative style alternates between inflated ugliness in orange, black, bisque (as per Orlando, the Brave Vulture) and multicolor peasant picturesqueness (last spring's The Donkey Ride), sometimes with good effect for the story, sometimes gratuitously—but children will drool over the double-page spread of delicacies, a kind of gemutlich McCall's. The beginning is authentic scare, the turnabout is fare play and good fun, the last is a letdown—it will repel some youngsters, probably attract more, but it's not Ungerer at his best.