The Downhill Crocodile Whizz and Other Stories
by Margaret Mahy; ill. Jon Riley (Puffin, 1987)
The lead story doesn’t do justice to this collection. Where ‘The Downhill Crocodile Whizz’ is merely frivolous, the nine subsequent tales offer imagination of substance, combining fairy-tale whimsy with offbeat social observations and gently eccentric worldbuilding. Jon Riley’s illustrations egg the pudding.