Customer Reviews

Slovak Tales for Young and Old: Pavol Dobsinsky in English and Slovak

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

 

 

Slovak Tales For Young And Old: Pavol Dobsinksy In English And Slovak is an engaging collection of tales derived from classic Slovakian literature, and imbued with tradition. Smoothly translated by Lucy Bednar into English for readers of all ages to enjoy, and featuring impressive illustrations by Martin Benka which enhance these colorful and vivacious fables and folklore, Slovak Tales For Young And Old is a welcome and much appreciated contribution to family, school, and community library Folklore, Fairytale & Mythology collections.

I'm slovak and I really enjoyed the original text included in this book. The tales are really for grown-ups too, because they are teaching us that the simplest things in life sometimes are the best ones.

A jump into the Slovak popolar culture with some magnificent illustrations.

This book was a pleasant surprise. It is large, so it makes a good lap book for reading aloud. The stories are similar to Grimm's. They are a refreshing break from today's "everybody is okay" line of fairy tales. These stories are short and pack a moral wallop - the good characters have all the typical traits of honesty and hard-work and in the end they are rewarded. The bad characters are greedy and cruel and in the end are duly punished. Each story is illustrated.

My only complaint is that while the first 2/3 of the book is nicely laid out - written in English with pictures on almost every page - the last 1/3 of the book is in Slovak with no pictures. It would have been better to have split text where English is on one half of the page and Slovak is on the other side (like old Bibles written in two languages)

Slovak Tales for Young and Old; Pavol Dobsinsky in English and Slovak, is a marvelous book..It is filled with wonderful folk tales. The illustrations are very nice too. I would recommend this book for children of all ages and especially for anyone with Slovak heritage..It is well worth the price...and brought many childhood memories back to me...

I like this book because it helps me refresh my memory about the tales and stories I used to read as a child when I lived in Slovakia. The only downside is that the stories are quite short, so it doesn't really go into the detail I remember. I guess it's so they would all fit into one book, but I'd prefer them in their original length. However, it's a nice looking book and I'm excited about it.

I was really curious how some of the words that are so unique in Slovak are translated. The translator did excellent job translating these tales.

I purchased two copies of "Slovak Tales for Young and Old". One was for myself. The other for Emma, my 2 year old grand-niece. Emma's mother, Lydia, was from Presov, Slovakia. She is now a US citizen living in California. She is raising Emma bi-lingual. To encourage that I bought this book. Most of the book with illustrations is in English. At the back of the book all the stories are in Slovak. Lydia on seeing the title of the stories in the book said she knew all of them. She grew up hearing those stories, it was just like being home.