T'aal, the One Who Takes Bad Children

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Long ago, on the West Coast of North America, there lived a big ugly
ogre named T’aal who lurked in the forest waiting for children to
disobey their parents by going out into the woods at night. When they
did, T’aal would grab them and then whisk them back to his camp where
he would hang them on a tree, fatten them up, roast them, and eat them.
One night, two good children are asked by their parents to fetch their
grandmother because her skills as a midwife are needed. The good
children obey, but because they are out at night, T’aal assumes they
are bad children and snatches them up. Although they protest their
goodness, T’aal does not listen. The good children are hung on a tree
with the bad children, and it is clear that T’aal intends to eat them.


In this Kafkaesque tale, two good children are wrongfully accused and,
thanks to supernatural red tape, seem about to suffer an unjust fate.
But because good children listen to their parents, they eventually
figure a way out of their predicament, whereas the bad children are left
hanging. The story ends with the good children triumphing over
bureaucratic bungling. This is a story the Brothers Grimm would have
been proud of. Recommended.