Book Review - The Devil's Storybooks

I'm not sure when or how this book landed on my bookshelf but I found it there recently and decided to give it a read. I'm glad I did. The Devil's Storybooks is a collection of twenty short stories. It sounds like this was originally published as two separate books but the edition I have includes the stories from both books in one collection. 

Written for children, each of the stories are rather short with most being fewer than 10 pages and some quite a bit shorter than that. The language is simple and evocative and would be great for reading aloud to smaller children. My edition also includes illustrations with each story that makes for a lot of fun.

From a high level, my first thought was to label this 'Screwtape Letters' for children. While that catches some of the sense, the stories here are a bit lighter and while the messages do convey solid moral ideals they aren't nearly as ponderous as in Screwtape. 

Still, for the intended youthful audience and even for adult readers, this is a great collection of stories. Each story can be read as a silly fairy tale with laughable consequences to crazy actions or can be looked at a little deeper for some introspection about personal and societal behaviors. However you decide to read it you will find it time well spent.

4 out of 5 stars

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