Growing up, I had fantastic picture books from the Soviet Union. They had been picked up by my mother from various pavements in Mumbai. They were scandalously cheap (50 paise to Rs. 2/-) and made delightful reading. The art was excellent, with breathtaking illustrations, and positively avant-garde design. My first brush with Tolstoy was through a book of poignant short stories with scratchy, brilliantly-rendered black and white illustrations. Chekhov’s Patch had the blue-grey-and-white tones of a Russian winter; and the dire moral in Pushkin’s narrative poem The Fisherman and the Goldfish was reinforced with beautifully chilling illustrations. There were jewel-bright Russian folk stories as well, with Baba Yaga and her gaudy house on its tall, birdlike legs. There was also the gossamer magic of Zhenya, the girl who swapped seven bread rolls for a multicoloured wish-fulfilling flower!
The greatest thing was that children in practically every part of the country could read these inexpensive, well-produced picture books in all languages. Far away in Gujarat, MP, interior Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and who-knows-where-else, there were kids from our generation reading them and lurhving them! But now the the Soviet Union is gone and so are the pavement book-stalls. You won’t find legendary piles of cheap picture books anymore. The big books stores haven’t heard of these and the House of Soviet Culture simply says nyet. Scouring pavements, we’ve found some gems: Patch; Kornei Chukovsky’s magical nonsense verse in Hindi; a lovely book about a baby called Mashenka; and the hilarious When daddy was a little boy…
This is a slightly altered excerpt from my article in Time Out, Mumbai
Click
here if you want to see a few illustrations from some of our old books!
Growing up, I had fantastic picture books from the
Comments
i grew up reading some of the soviet books too. do you remember the story of the little boy who could not play his new trumpet (because his grandfather just died, i think)? i had been searching for the story online just recently.
will you also accept story submissions? i had written a children's story once but haven't sent it out to anyone yet.
This is Vinay here. I've been searching for this book "When Daddy was a little boy" by Alexander Raskin. I had this book when I was a kid but lost it when i lent to a friend. I've been trying to find it everywhere with no luck. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
-Vinay.
vinaypaleja@yahoo.com
I have been trying in vain to find Alexander Raskin's When Daddy was a Little Boy. Can you give me some pointers as to where this may be available?
Thanks and best regards.
Ravi.
ravi_peravali@yahoo.com
Hey I can't believe it, a fellow Soviet Book lover. Well I am a writer too and yup I LOVED those books., Can you beat it, I found Adventures of Dennis online!!! Trying to find the others, you never know, Do drop by. Cheers!
http://home.freeuk.net/russica2/books/nez/book.html
For all the lovers of this book, i could manage to get the image of the front cover. Its enough to bring back the feeling of glossy touch of the cover and black / green cartoons.
http://cgi.ebay.pl/Raskin-WHEN-DADDY-WAS-A-LITTLE-BOY-wyd-1973_W0QQitemZ200127067247QQihZ010QQcategoryZ134800QQcmdZViewItem
I have been searching for it. I remember a story of two sisters who had been gathering mushrooms and the younger one fell on the train tracks in front of an oncoming train. The train goes by and then she gets up and brushes herself off and collects her spilled mushrooms. Another is of a father who warns his children not to eat the plumbs, and when he finds that one is missing he says that plumbs have a stone that will harm the children. One child blurts out, "I threw the stone out of the window."
Does anyone else know the book? Thanks so much for your wonderful blog. Erica: royalquietdeluxe (at) gmail.com
Was browsing around aimlessly and found this blogspot. I now live in Dubai but was a Bombay girl and loved the Russian Storybooks, just like the rest of you. I have been desperately searching for this one Russian children's storybook. It had a tomato red cover with the sketch of a little,blonde boy in the centre. The boy's name was Vanya and one of the Stories was called "Happy days are here again"and another one was "Grandson Vanya". I have actually spent 2 holidays to India only looking for this book.
Please, please let me know where I can get this book.
Thanks
Joanna
I was very much surprised when i found this blog.Myself and my brother used to read russian story books.We had a vast collection of books.While shifting to another place, my parents gave all those books to my cousins, who lost it,some of them r torn.As a parent I wanted to gift my children russian books especially "when my daddy was a little boy".But couldn't find one. Hope this time I will again search in mangalore & udupi, if i find those books i will surely let u know
Thanks for taking me back memory lane....
Mona-Matt
we'd love to have scanned the book, but it's incredibly tough for us because we are very caught up with work - amit's illustrating and i'm writing this big informative book, and it's a crazy amount of work. not to forget our day job as parents! what spare time we have goes to that cause... sorry about this, but honestly, nothing can replicate the joy of a real book in your hands, so hit the used-book stalls in your city. i've often found the book there...
sorry again!
I remember the book you mentioned'Happy Days'.The cover stays in my memory.The last few pages in the book have a family picking currants-some kind of berries. A very special book indeed! Thanks for the memories
and relive my old memories.
i can't believe i share a recall so unique as u...the USSR comic book about Vanya, the boy who goes to moon also!
There are rockets ofcourse, its USSR comic, and then there is Yuri (another character, i dunno what he did). But am glad to know the name of the book was happy days are here again, to me the illustration was enigmatic, bit somber but very original and grand.
If you have links, addresses of where to get hands on more such erstwhile comic-book era, do pass em on, i'd be speechless!!!
cheers to that!
Kamal
i can't believe i share a recall so unique as u...the USSR comic book about Vanya, the boy who goes to moon also!
There are rockets ofcourse, its USSR comic, and then there is Yuri (another character, i dunno what he did). But am glad to know the name of the book was happy days are here again, to me the illustration was enigmatic, bit somber but very original and grand.
If you have links, addresses of where to get hands on more such erstwhile comic-book era, do pass em on, i'd be speechless!!!
cheers to that!
Kamal
Anybody interested can contact me at manu77duggal@gmail.com
May I have your permission to use your image for our performance?
Please let me know.
Thanks, so much.
Thanks,
Anita
Hey all you guys up above..... :) please check out this blog to find "When Daddy was a little boy" as a pdf file.