Suppose You Met A Witch (1973, Ian Serraillier and Ed Emberley)

Pick any date landing somewhere in my first year of grade school and chances are I had "Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals" (1970) on loan from the school library that day. "...Animals" was just one of many books by Ed Emberley that taught children how to draw cute, cartoonish characters using just a dozen or so simple shapes and lines.

The truth is, by first-grade standards I was considered, in the parlance of the schoolyard, a "pretty good draw-er" and could scribble a decent illustration without relying on Emberley's sequential instructions. Rather, it was Emberley's appealing  style and whimsical imagination that caused me to hoard his books like buried treasure.

Where else was I going to see a turtle roller-skating in the rain?

"..Animals" focuses exclusively on the animal kingdom, but also includes a useful facial-expressions sampler, as well as an example of how his simplistic, shape-based creations could be easily embellished into something a little fancier.

Step aside, Block In Bird, here comes Embellish!

Later entries in Emberley's instructional series included "Make A World" (1972) and a string of color-themed books ("Purple", "Green", "Orange", "Red") which, collectively, established an alternate Emberl-iverse of characters, vehicles and fantastic creatures. (I previously posted on his monster-themed  "Book of Weirdos".) Many of these books are still in print.

Emberley also produced absolutely charming woodcut illustrations for the 1965 book "Yankee Doodle" (Dr. Richard Schackburg). 

But perhaps his most striking work is found in the 1973 book "Suppose You Met a Witch". Illustrating a fairy-tale story by English poet Ian Serraillier (originally published in 1952), Emberley's work here (sixteen two-page spreads, plus front and back covers) is almost psychedelic.

Presented below in its entirety.

The above beautiful illustration of two swans on the water is done in very light, low contrast colors that is hard to appreciate from a scan. Below is the same spread with the contrast cranked up to eleven to reveal the line work.

"Suppose You Met A Witch" is out of print as of this writing.

Spooky Rhymes and Riddles (Lilian Moore, 1972)

Hi, Julie B. I seem to have acquired your copy of Spooky Rhymes and Riddles. It's mine now. All mine.
From Scholastic Book Services, Spooky Rhymes and Riddles (1972, Lilian Moore, illustrated by Ib Ohlsson) is a collection of poems on witches, ghosts and monsters. Unlike the childhood-scarring Poems to Trouble Your Sleep, these all favor fun over fright.

The complete contents are:

The Ghost in Our Apartment House
The Monster's Pet
When a Monster Scolds Her Children
Ghost Baby
What to Say to an Alligator
The Friendly Guy
Spooky Riddles
The Ghost Goes to the Supermarket
Mrs. O'Gray
Greedy Goblin
Listen!
Cat
The Monster's Birthday
Johnny Drew a Monster
There Was an Egg
Something Is There
Spooky Limericks
Poem About THEM
When a Ghost Gets Smudgy
The Witch's Song
Bedtime Story
Teeny Tiny Ghost

The Farmer and the Witch (1966, Ida DeLage, Gil Miret)

A farmer gets caught up in a feud with a witch in the 1966 picture book The Farmer and The Witch, one of several witch books authored by Ida DeLage and illustrated by Gil Miret. (This story was apparently also published under the title The Witch's Spell.)

After some back-and-forth in which the witch steals the farmer's pie, and the farmer chases her with a hayfork, the feud escalates when the witch concocts a brew to poison his drinking water!

Stirring her mixture 99 times to the left, then 99 times to the right, she recites:

Seven toadstools in a row.
Old black feather from a crow.
Wiggle worm,
Spider spin,
Drop another lizard in.
Big fat grub,
A snail or two.
Cook them up
For witch's brew.

The farmer ends up using a Halloween jack-o-lantern and the witch's left-behind cloak to make a scarecrow.