Eric A Kimmel

An account of some of the events of the childhood of Louis Armstrong

GROWING UP IN Russia in the late 1800s, Marc Chagall doesn't know what art is. He doesn't even know what drawing is until one of hisschoolmates shows him how to trace a picture in a magazine. Marc tries it himself, then decides to pull pictures out of his own mind - his Uncle Noah on the roof, giant chickens, flying cows, happy men with fiddles, and women with lambs. Suddenly Marc knows what he wants to do with his life. He wants to be an artist!...

Anansi the Spider uses a strange moss-covered rock in the forest to trick all the other animals, until Little Bush Deer decides he needs to learn a lesson

A freshly baked gingerbread man escapes when he is taken out of the oven and eludes a number of animals until he meets a clever fox.

When Anansi the spider invites Turtle to a party just to play a trick on him, Turtle gets revenge at a party of his own

In this version of the classic tale, two children wander from the wagon train taking them west and find a log cabin made of candy, inhabited by a witch.

In this Southwestern version of Rumplestiltskin, Rosalinda is in debt to the strange little snake man Rattlestiltskin after he teaches her how to make tortillas so light they float in the air, but can she outsmart the trickster and keep her freedom?

In this variation of "The Three Little Pigs" set in the Southwest, three little tamales escape from a restaurant before they can be eaten, and set up homes in the prairie, cornfield, and desert

When an old lady swindles him out of his magic dreidels, Jacob tries to get them back in time for the family's Hanukkah celebration

Relates how Hershel outwits the goblins that haunt the old synagogue and prevent the village people from celebrating Hanukkah.