AARON SHEPARD'S 1st PAGE: PRINCESS OF INDIA; THE SEA KING'S DAUGHTER

PRINCESS OF INDIA: An Ancient Tale (30th Anniversary Edition)
AARON SHEPARD (illus. Vera Rosenberry)
Skyhook Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.00 paperback, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: The ancient tale of one of bravest, cleverest heroines of all time.

Beauty and intelligence were the princess Savitri's, and eyes that shone like the sun. So splendid was she that people thought her a goddess. When at last she found a man worthy to wed her, no one could sway her from her heart's path—not even the god of death.

This lovely retelling, now in a 30th Anniversary Edition, presents a classic tale of devotion, courage, wit, and will from India's national epic, the Mahabharata. (Original picture book title: "Savitri: A Tale of Ancient India.")

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Lovely, simplified but not dumbed-down kid-friendly retelling of a small part of the Mahabharata: the life of Princess Savitri.

Savitri herself

A woman whose entire will is bent to achieving a goal can overcome her father's resistance, can even defeat the God of Death...her power is formidable. So how does she use it?

To keep her husband from being taken from her.

he seems nice

There are relatively few ideas in this book, except focus, clarity, and a cool head will help you achieve yuor goals:

focus even when facing a god

After adventures are had, you can keep your prize:

Is it beautiful? yes; do I like its gender politics? not a lot. All this effort and all she gets is a man? There's lots of those. It felt to me as though I was being overcritical all the way through. I'm pleased the pricess saves the boy, but this doesn't make me think we ought to put this on the minds of second-graders somehow.

But that's some stunning artwork! You'll get happy smiles from the art-lovin' youth and parents.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE SEA KING'S DAUGHTER: A Russian Legend
AARON SHEPARD (illus. Gennady Spirin)
Skyhook Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.00 paperback, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Sadko the musician loved his city of Novgorod, the richest and most free in all Russia.

With its great feasts, its white stone churches, its merchant visitors from many lands, Sadko felt there was no better place to be. Yet he was lonely too, for the rich young ladies who danced to his music would never favor anyone so poor.

One night he takes his twelve-string gusli and goes alone to play by the River Volkhov. Suddenly from the water rises the Sea King, who invites the astonished musician to play at his underwater palace. But how will Sadko get there? And how will he get back? And will he want to return at all, when he meets the Sea King's lovely daughter?

One of the most popular legends of Russia, Sadko's story is found in medieval epic ballads, as well as in a popular opera by Rimsky-Korsakov. It is retold here in elegant prose, complemented by the entrancing illustrations of a modern Russian master.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Poignant tale of love that cannot ever be, of being separated from one's love by things outside our control, and living on as well as one can. It's a sad story, but longing is a human emotion children resonate with. A tale with long, long cultural roots in the Russophone world for a very good reason...now brought quite stunningly to life with some of the most spectacular illustrations I've seen yet.

how we're greeted

As expected from Author Shepard, the language is lovely, lyrical, and ideal for that still-alert six-year-old who gets to lap-read it at naptime, down to a truly little one who needs it read at bedtime. This artwork makes it a great coffee-table book, one I'd display very prominently and proudly. Look:

Sadko; by the river; the storm

the Sea King; with daughter Volkhova

I am more than a little in love with this style of illustration. It is transporting to the world of the story. It gives us a real, visceral sense of the Otherness and impossinility of Sadko in his situation:

In common with all legends, this one is well-populated with interesting folk. This spread is the one I'd spend the longest staring at:

...possibly because Sadko looks very, um, provocative down in that corner.

Not inappropriate, invisible to kids, but makes me wonder what this message really is....

Something I think any parent with a lap-reader would thank you for giving to their kid. Grand, aunts, uncles all duly encouraged!

DEATHLESS, Catherynne Valente's Leningrad Diptych #1 7 October 2013

DEATHLESS
CATHERYNNE VALENTE (Leningrad Diptych #1)
Tor Books
$18.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

2 JUNE 2021 KINDLE EDITION ON SALE FOR $2.99

The Publisher Says: Koschei the Deathless is to Russian folklore what devils or wicked witches are to European culture: a menacing, evil figure; the villain of countless stories which have been passed on through story and text for generations. But Koschei has never before been seen through the eyes of Catherynne Valente, whose modernized and transformed take on the legend brings the action to modern times, spanning many of the great developments of Russian history in the twentieth century.

Deathless, however, is no dry, historical tome: it lights up like fire as the young Marya Morevna transforms from a clever child of the revolution, to Koschei’s beautiful bride, to his eventual undoing. Along the way there are Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy and bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. All told, Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation.

My Review: Remember how I said I didn't like books with majgickq and elves and stuff, and how very resistant I'd be so such stories?

Ha.

Magical to a fault, mystical and full of eyerollingly silly things like big black cars with chicken's feet instead of tires, and factories where soldiers are hand-loomed by the Tsar of Life's cast-off mistresses under the supervision of Baba Yaga.

And what can I say? Like every hard and fast rule, this rule went flooey in no time at all, thanks to some ecstatic carolings and appreciative lowings from some very talented reviewers. You terrible people know who you are. I don't love you for causing me to eat my words so publicly.

Russia is a strange, strange place to me. During some really vicious pogroms they tossed in the 19th century, a Polish Jewish ancestress of mine...great-grandmother...walked away from her shtetl, her family, and her identity, got to Bavaria and married an old Catholic man with no living children but who had a shop, and started again. He died, she sold up, she moved on to the USA via Paris, two kids and an American lover in tow. So thanks Russians for being murderously anti-Semitic or I wouldn't be alive today! But the culture that gave rise to the anti-Semitic stuff has always filled me with disgust and not a little horror at the christian hate and apostolic misery doled out on all the people. The myths of the peasantry seem so unforgiving and tricksy and just plain vicious. Then I contemplate the way the country was run (being polite, not well, not ever)...it makes sense...but it still always made me feel icky to read about it.

Then comes this melding of myth and materialsm, supernatural and Supreme Soviet...and I fell head first into love with the package.

Valente's use of language is exemplary. She never stints or holds back. Descriptions are abundant yet they are never obfuscatory; the idea is to create a 3-D experience in the reader's mind and by GUM (old Cold War humor, sorry) she does just exactly that. She never reaches beyond her grasp or talks down to her audience. If only a Russian word will do, there it is, and the nuances are not Spelled Out For You and neither must you resort to Google and Good Luck to find out what the hell this woman's on about.

This (revoltingly) young writer has the temerity and the confidence and the chops to pull off this melding of modernity and medievalism without breaking a (visible) sweat. That's one sweet achievement. This is a book that's as Russian as hot tea with sour cherry preserves and as American as serving it in a Starbucks cup.

And it's beautiful. And it's moving. And it's graceful and lovely and possessed of the most marvelous ability to switch from tango to waltz to jitterbug. Dance with her. This opportunity doesn't come every day.