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,...

After asking the sun, a cloud, the wind, and a wall to marry her, a mouse finds just the right husband.

A mouse father, in search of the mightiest husband for his daughter, approaches the emperor, the sun, a cloud, the wind, and a wall, before the unexpected victor finally appears.

A retelling of a traditional tale in which Little Mouse, determined to marry the strongest being on Earth, travels with an old hermit to visit the sun, a cloud, the wind, and a mountain, before the unexpected successful suitor appears.

Tales to encourage children to read original classical literature either on their own or with the help of more experienced readers in their lives.