A clever and beautiful woman uses her wits to get her husband out of Prince Vladimir’s prison.
Vassilisa The Wise
Russia
Materials from Russia
First Snow, Magic Snow
A little girl made from the magical first snow lives with a lonely man and his wife through the winter, and when she disappears in the spring, the couple set out in search of her.
Firebird
“In the shadow of King Vaslav’s Palace was a marvelous garden, and in the middle of that garden stood a tree that grew apples of solid gold, each one as dazzling as the sun.”Someone is stealing the king’s famous golden apples, and the culprit must be found. The palace gardener spots the luminous Firebird snatching the apples in the night. The king’s two oldest sons are sent to capture it but fail. So Ivan, the youngest son, must go on the dangerous quest, befriending a gray wolf, winning both the Firebird and the heart of the beautiful Princess Helen. Saviour Pirotta’s powerful retelling of this classic folktale plumbs the heart of human fears, courage, and love.
Babushka’s Mother Goose
Presents a collection of traditional rhymes, rewritten to feature Russian characters and scenes.
Grandma Chickenlegs
In this variation of the traditional Baba Yaga story, a young girl must rely on the advice of her dead mother and her special doll when her wicked stepmother sends her to get a needle from Grandma Chickenlegs.
The Girl Who Wanted To Hunt: A Siberian Tale
A young girl uses her skills as a hunter to avenge her father’s death and to escape her evil stepmother.
Stone Men
Grandma tells Arnie how a poor peddler saved a village from being destroyed by soldiers with the help of the stone men he always made on his journeys.
#1 (One)
When Six, a pink armadillo with nine green siblings, brags that he is “#1” in everything, his family expresses a different opinion.
Russian Girl: Life in an Old Russian Town
Text and photographs describe the life of a nine-year-old girl and her family in the small Russian city of Suzdal.
The Language of Birds
A retelling of the Russian tale about a wealthy merchant’s younger son who proves his worth in an unusual way.