The Fortune Tellers by Lloyd Alexander (1992) is a humorous story about an old fortune teller who really does predict the future, in a way. When a young adult asks if he will be rich, the old fortune teller replies “‘Rich you will surely be. . . On one condition: that you earn large sums of money.’” The old fortune teller predicts his customer will be happy “‘if you can avoid being miserable.’” The young man is ecstatic. Quite by accident, he finds himself taking the place of the old man. Wealth and good fortune follow. What happened to the old fortune teller is intended to be funny, I suppose. Trina Schart Hyman’s illustrations are richly detailed. They are the reason I picked up this book.
