Mikhail Baryshnikov's Stories From My Childhood: Beloved Fairy Tales from the Queen to Cinderella

By Oleg Vidov

Book Overview

This gorgeous anthology of fairy tales - some classic, some less familiar to Western readers - is based on the award-winning series of animated stories, Mikhail Baryshnikov's Stories From My Childhood. The series introduced to the United States the work of Soyuzmultfilm Studios, a group of Soviet artists who illustrated well-known European and Russian fairy tales starting in the 1930s. In a foreword, world-renowned ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov describes growing up watching these films in the Soviet Union. He has been a strong supporter of the importation of the films to the U.S., and will discuss his appreciation of the art form and the timelessness of the stories. The illustrations for the stories are beautiful. Animated film stills will be pulled from the original celluloid, bringing new life to already stunning artwork. An afterword by the authors provides a history of the animation studio.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810910179
• ISBN13: 9780810910171
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.5" x 10.9"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Grade 3

Customer Reviews

Well written

Understanding that the stories may not be 100% true to the originals it is still a wonderful book. Not only do my grand children enjoy me reading the stories to them but my grown kids do too.

PC-ized titles?

Sad to see eagerness in trimming everything to the insipid norms of political correctness. Ivan and his Magic Pony was originally Ivan the Fool and the Gibbous Little Horse. So what if they are "handicapped": some sort of handicap is almost required for this underdog-has-to-win type of fairy tales; and the talking horse is a magic creature, no wonder it is a bit weird.Another adjustment made for no apparent reason is Pinocchio. The tale by Alexei Tolstoy is about Buratino, and it's a very loose variation on Pinocchio, to the point that it's a story in its own right. Why bring the confusion?As for the fairy tales, they are all wonderful. I read (or was told) them in my childhood.The Soviet-made cartoons, whence the stills came, are also posh, if you don't mind dull and grainy look of film.