Customer Reviews

Baba Yaga (Sandpiper Books)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My daughter still remembers this as being one of her favorite books and it is certainly mine, though it may not be for very young children. This is a wonderful presentation of the Baba Yaga tales. It takes on difficult psychological material with levity and safety. Baba Yaga is not just the terrible witch that eats "bad" (in this case untruthful) children, as the young children in the story find their way to truth she becomes the great mysterious healer/crone who is actually a protector of something we sense is important to human beings. Maybe it is the truth or some important aspect of the feminine. This book appears to be well researched and complex in its presentation.

My four year old loved this book. Yes, the themes are a little darker, but that's generally how fairy tales are and it's really how you read them and interpret them to your child that makes the difference. Blair Lent's illustrations are wonderful and comical in some cases just as they are in Tikki Tikki Tembo and the Funny Little Woman which lightens the story considerably. This fairy tale is more imaginative than most which made it a welcome read to me as well

My kindergartener brought this book home from the school library. I was surprised that this book was made available to a 5 year old. It has very dark themes - an old woman was to cook and eat bad little girls, keeping a girl against her will, no mention of a mother or father being concerned about the girl. It has shadings of Hanzel and Grettel, but much darker. The book description states, "The illustrations of this...book are particularly effective in evoking the terror and imaginative flavor of this old Russian tale." I don't think any child should be reading a book that will evoke terror. I was quite surprised to see the Amazon reading level at ages 4 - 8. Maybe this would be okay for a mature 8 year old.