by Rafe Martin
Stoddart Kids, 2000
Genre: Fairy tales
Honors: unknown
Review: An orphaned girl named Marushka, who has lost her parents, goes to live with her selfish and greedy aunt and cousin, who turn her into a housekeeper while they sit around the house doing nothing. However, her relatives become increasingly bitter when they see how pleasantly Marushka takes to her life of chores and no outside contact. They vow to find a way to rid themselves of their burdensome, cheerful neice. The aunt decides to demand that Marushka go out in the middle of winter and collect items from the earth that it can't possily produce, and after she is pushed out the door, it is locked behind her. So begins a story in which twelve unusual characters sitting around a fire in the middle of the woods come to Marushka's aid again and again, to the frustration of her aunt and cousin. When she succeeds in fulfilling their demands, the two relatives decide that her bounty is not enough and that they must find the source for themselves. The moral of this story from Czechoslovakia is not to take advantage of others and to show appreciation for what you have.
Opinion: This is a fairly short story, with illustrations that only convey part of what is written in the narrative; they are beautiful, nonetheless, and the lessons taught in the fairy tale are very good ones. Not much else to say, except that this book was rated for younger readers and I'm not really sure why it wouldn't be just as interesting for nine-, ten-, and eleven-year-olds.
Ideas: The story is simple enough, with few characters and objects, that it could be told as a puppet show or play. Actors could have a lot of fun acting out the slob-ish behavior of the aunt and cousin, and the audience could have some fun playing with the props in the story after the play is over.
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