Suzon and the Butterfly. French folk songs
Sound, clean, easy-to-remember short poems in a beautiful translation by Nina Gernet and Sergei Gippius retain a soft playful tone and truly French gallantry, coquetry, and good-natured mockery.
The book wants not only to reread, but also, thanks to the wonderful illustrations by Vladimir Konashevich, to consider repeatedly. Characters and objects are always shown in full, so that, as the artist himself said, "all its parts were visible". Costumes, utensils, houses, and the characters themselves retain their national coloring.
Konashevich draws not just pictures. He develops and completes the text, surrounds a small poem with such a mass of eloquent "really real" details that a description of them would take a whole page.
For example, in the poem "Skirt" together with the dressy young lady dashingly dances a kitty with a bow, hilariously repeating the movements of the mistress: the young lady holds the hem of the skirt with her hand, and the cat holds her long tail with her paw. And for the quatrain "Where the slanty lives" - about a hare, who every morning goes somewhere with a blanket under his arm - the artist creates a detailed drawn story with a cunning fox, peeping out of the window behind the long-eared, businesslike walking by. The fox, by the way, has his own henhouse on the roof, and the hens, led by a rooster, are clucking and squawking about where the bunny has gone.
The book wants not only to reread, but also, thanks to the wonderful illustrations by Vladimir Konashevich, to consider repeatedly. Characters and objects are always shown in full, so that, as the artist himself said, "all its parts were visible". Costumes, utensils, houses, and the characters themselves retain their national coloring.
Konashevich draws not just pictures. He develops and completes the text, surrounds a small poem with such a mass of eloquent "really real" details that a description of them would take a whole page.
For example, in the poem "Skirt" together with the dressy young lady dashingly dances a kitty with a bow, hilariously repeating the movements of the mistress: the young lady holds the hem of the skirt with her hand, and the cat holds her long tail with her paw. And for the quatrain "Where the slanty lives" - about a hare, who every morning goes somewhere with a blanket under his arm - the artist creates a detailed drawn story with a cunning fox, peeping out of the window behind the long-eared, businesslike walking by. The fox, by the way, has his own henhouse on the roof, and the hens, led by a rooster, are clucking and squawking about where the bunny has gone.
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books in the series The best for kids








