Russian/Ukrainian Tales from Patricia Polacco

 Babushka Baba Yaga 1993.

We have now read about Baba Yaga, who is usually depicted as a fearsome hag who lives in a traveling house balanced on chicken feet. However, in Patricia Polacco’s 1993 story, we get to see a softer side of the infamous witch. The last of her kind, this Baba Yaga longs for a child to love. Inspired by the sight of a gathering of babushkas (grannies) and some untended clothes on a line, our Baba Yaga decides to disguise herself as a loving but lonely crone. She hopes to find a family to help and a surrogate grandchild. She is successful, but is troubled by town gossip of the dangerous Baba Yaga. Finally, the moment comes when she can prove her good heart to all. This is a tender tale with a message to judge others for what they are and not how they seem.

Even in her natural state, this Baba Yaga looks wild but cute rather than frightening. Polacco draws her with very pointed, tufted ears, lots of wild grey hair and talon-like nails, with a fairy swinging playfully from her finger. Baba is aided in her disguise by cheerful looking forest animals, such as a fox, a rabbit, a frog, and a bear. All the babushkas and villagers wear layers of bright colored, patterned clothing, and Polacco’s details of the families’ homes and gatherings give a feeling of warmth and community that fits perfectly with the story’s message.

 Luba and the Wren (Picture Puffins) 1999.


In Luba and the Wren (Picture Puffins) from 1999, Polacco tells a story that I’d first heard as The Fisherman and His Wife. I don’t know if she has recorded a Ukrainian variant, or if she decided to convert the tale to give it a new setting and flavor. Luba is the happy child of poor farmers. One day, when she is searching for mushrooms in the woods, she finds and releases a wren trapped in a net. When the little bird offers her a wish in return, Luba can think of nothing that she lacks. But, when she shares the story with her parents, they encourage her to go back to the wren and ask for a better home and property. This pleases them, but only for a while. Poor Luba is soon the unwillingly go between for her parents’ increasingly greedy and outrageous demands.

The story is bookended by papers with cheerful orange, teal and pink floral motifs that also provide lovely frames for some of the text. Luba looks appropriately innocent and rosy in her multipatterned headscarves and dresses. The small brown wren goes from friendly and freckled in the palm of Luba’s hand to red eyed and frightening with wings and tail feathers raised in outrage, on a branch far above her head. Originally, the family’s little dacha looks somewhat ramshackle, but also bright and welcoming. Luba is surrounded by affectionate farm animals. As her surroundings grow grander, her parents become more remote and the animals are generally pictured farther away and more impersonal. When all is set to right, Luba is shown snuggling with her parents while the once again friendly wren looks on.

Visit the author at http://www.patriciapolacco.com/

How many animals does it take...Mitten Tales

 The Mitten by Alvin Tresselt. Illus. by Yaroslava. 1964.

The base plot of this Ukrainian/ Russian folktale involves a shelter, numerous animals who hope to squeeze into it, and the inevitable breakdown of their temporary home. Sometimes this is a jar or a shack, but in Tresselt’s version, as you may guess, the shelter is a mitten. A little boy out gathering firewood on a snowy day drops his fur cuffed mitten, which is found by a delighted mouse. Soon, she is joined by larger and larger animals until a cricket proves to be more than the mitten can hold and its stitches pop open. The animals run away and the boy returns to find his mitten destroyed, but luckily his grandmother has made him a new pair.

In spite of the beauty of Jan Brett’s version, Tresselt’s The Mitten still has pleasant things to offer the reader, and so it’s nice to look at both versions. The story turns out to be the childhood memory of the narrator’s grandfather and the animals share the mitten out of concern for each other, which are pleasing details.

When judging the book’s art, you need to keep in mind that the book was produced in the mid 1960s, when full color pictures were used more modestly. Only a few ink colors are employed, but the results are attractive. Pages alternate between being entirely teal with black line drawings and white snowflakes or on white backgrounds with cheerful splashes of red, gold or green. The child and the animals are dressed in old fashioned Ukrainian costume. The pages preceding the story show the little mouse turning the book’s page and standing on the “M” in mitten.

 The Mitten 20th Anniversary Edition by Jan Brett, 2009.

In Brett’s story, the little boy, Nicki, wants his grandmother Baba to knit him snow white mittens. One is soon lost due to his outside play and before long it is filled with animals, beginning with a lucky mole. A little mouse on a bear’s nose brings about a sneeze that launches the now empty mitten into the air. Running by, Nicki catches the mitten and takes it home with its mate. One difference from Tresselt’s version is that the animals only let each other in because they are wary of talons, prickles and teeth!

I am certainly not the only one who thinks that Jan Brett’s book art is fantastic, and The Mitten is no exception. In the preface, Brett says that she visited the Ukrainian section of New York City and the Ukrainian Museum to learn more about their culture before she started drawing. All of the artwork is done in double page spreads, and the main picture is framed by birch bark with cutouts of the left and right mittens to either side. This allows the reader to see the current action, but also see what else is going on simultaneously. For example, as the hedgehog squeezes in with the rabbit and the mole, we can look at the left mitten and see Nicki looking into a knothole in a tree while an owl looks down at him, then look at the right mitten to see the owl leaving the tree as Nicki walks away. Where could the owl be headed? Every spread has changing embroidery motifs for added decoration. Brett gives us the folk flavor with her human characters’ costume, and details of their home inside and out. Her animals are realistic but expressive. Visual humor rounds out the book, when Nicki returns his newly unmatched mittens to his Baba.

Jan Brett has a wonderful website with coloring pages and other children's activities. Visit her at Jan Brett .

Knock, Knock Teremok! A Traditional Russian Tale. By Katya Arnold, 1994.

Here we have a cumulative, rhyming story about a little hut (Teremok in Russian) and the many animals who want to live in it. It is a natural choice for storytime, because when we say “Knock, knock, knock. Who lives in the teremok?” each animal in turn announces itself. This leads to fun animal voices and noises. The party ends when a bear, unable to fit into the teremok, sits on the roof and squashes it flat.

Arnold notes that while this is a treasured animal story, she also sees it as “an allegory of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist ideal of disparate peoples living peacefully together.” Arnold’s distinctive watercolor and black line art add to the pleasure of the book, from the appearance of the kerchief-wearing fly to the toppling of the mushroom-swagged teremok.