title: Beauty and the Serpent: Thirteen Tales of Unnatural Animals
author:  Barbara Ann Porte 
description: Gr 6-10-The author and illustrator of Hearsay: Strange Tales from the Middle Kingdom (Greenwillow, 1998) team up again with this collection of eerie animal tales. The stage is set and the tales are worked within the framework of a high-school library. Ms. Lavinia Drumm, the eccentric librarian, presents most of the material, though she is joined occasionally by colleagues or students who are inspired to offer their own accounts. Puppies from hell, escalator-dwelling cats, murderous crows, and a coma-inducing snake tattoo with a life of its own are all a part of this macabre menagerie. There is nothing warm and fuzzy about these stories, even when the creatures act as protectors and friends. When they are riled up and become predators, the stories become downright gruesome. Many of the selections conclude with an allusion to details that intimate that the events may actually have happened, adding to the evocative, unsettling nature of the tales. Though many employ elements and motifs from folklore around the world, each treatment is original and is elaborated in vivid language, in the best manner of a master storyteller. The book is reminiscent of Judith Gorog's No Swimming in Dark Pond (Philomel, 1987; o.p.) and other collections; readers may find themselves shivering and smiling simultaneously, mulling over the plausibility of the plots and delighting in the sly undertone of a wicked wit. The richly textured woodcut illustrations in black and white perfectly underscore the darkness and depth of the stories.
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  # Maeve’s Book of Beasts
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Deborah Cooke
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #### [Deborah A. Cooke](http://deborahcooke.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **Maeve’s Book of Beasts**
  
  
  by Deborah Cooke
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2019 by Deborah A. Cooke
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  Cover by Dar Albert of Wicked Smart Designs.
  
  
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  of both the copyright holder and the publisher of this book.
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,
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