After the Nutcracker, I promised her the Firebird

December 15, 2005 11:51 AM

I'm looking for a good collection of Russian Fairy Tales for my four year old. There are several available on UK Amazon. Can anyone recommend one book in preference to the others?
posted by sagwalla to Writing & Language (8 answers total)

Have you ever read Russian Fairy Tales? I am not so sure you will want to read them to your four year old. They are quite graphic. Quite good, but probably best left to yourself. I have this book. Perhaps others are more appropriate for children, or perhaps your four year old is different from my son who had nightmares from this book at that age. The book I linked is nevertheless filled with amazing fairy tales.
posted by caddis at 12:00 PM on December 15, 2005

i also have the book caddis linked to, and it's quite good.
posted by booknerd at 12:07 PM on December 15, 2005

This site has a very large collection of fairy tales around the world and contains 3 full text books of Russian fairy tales along with links to buy them from Amazon so you can preview before you buy.
posted by hindmost at 1:05 PM on December 15, 2005

Check out these books. They're more appropriate for little kids. If you speak Russian, you can tell from my username that I'm also a fan of Russian fairy tales!
posted by zharptitsa at 2:29 PM on December 15, 2005

Best answer: I love caddis' linked book, but it's definitely not for four-year-olds. It's also very representative of some of the weaker aspects of big story collections in that there are a lot of slight variations on the same story...which I personally liked, but I'm a completist geek.

Recently I bought a copy of this book, since it's the only book I know of (in print, anyway) with Ivan Bilibin's illustrations. The image quality is fairly terrible compared to the originals, but it's better than nothing, I guess.

Also, it's not the Firebird, but The Magic Gold Fish is worth picking up. Farting around on Amazon turns up a few more likely candidates:

Baboushka and the Three Kings
The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship
The Firebird
The Sea King's Daughter
Clever Katya
Clay Boy
The Gigantic Turnip

I'm tempted to buy the Firebird/Sea King's Daughter myself, 'cause I'm a sucker for cool illustration.
posted by Vervain at 2:54 PM on December 15, 2005 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Spasibo bolshoi, everyone. That's great. Will keep us in stories for a while. I appreciate the warning on the suitability, too. I guess I'll have to use some licence in reading them aloud.
posted by sagwalla at 1:37 AM on December 16, 2005

Not to be a dick but shouldn't it be spasibo bolshoe?
posted by spicynuts at 6:53 AM on December 16, 2005

Yes, it should, or bolshoe spasibo.

And a resounding second here for Bilibin's illustrations; I have a series of books published (oddly, since it's a mint) by Goznak in the late '70s with gorgeous reproductions of his illustrations for Marya Morevna, Fenist the Falcon, and The Tale of Tsarevich Ivan, the Fire-bird and Grey Wolf (I thought I had more—I think there are seven in all—but I can't seem to find the others); if you can find them, get them.
posted by languagehat at 8:45 AM on December 16, 2005