Duffy and the Devil by Harve & Margot Zemach

Zemach, Harve & Margot. (1973) Duffy and the Devil. USA: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Inc.

Duffy and the Devil is a picture book written for early elementary age students. This book was originally an old folk tale that was performed as a play. Eventually the story was written down and it can only be found in print today. This book is a picture book, but it does have more words than the average picture book. The synopsis of the story is that young Duffy agrees to let the devil, who she does not know is the devil, do all of her spinning and knittin. Duffy has a carefree life until one day the devil asks her to identify him. Duffy cannot, but she eventually is told the devil's name. The devil loses but so do all of the knittings the devil has completed, they all turn to ash. This old folktale has a moral-never let other's do what you should be doing yourself. This is excellent to use in the classroom when teaching genre motifs.