Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Salem Main Library | J ILLUST Polacco, P. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Polacco | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | POLACCO | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Newberg Public Library | 398.2 POLACCO | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Silver Falls Library | JP POLACCO | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Woodburn Public Library | POLACCO | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Dear Luba, she lives so happily in her dacha in the country with her mama and papa-until she helps a frightened wren! She only means to help the wren, as she would any creature, but when the wren returns the favor, how Luba's life changes! "Ask for anything you wish," the wren says. Luba wants nothing, but her mama and papa want a rich estate. Then to be lords, then czar and czarina-then rulers of the world! Where will it end?In this blazing texture of color, Patricia Polacco, one of America's best-loved storytellers, brings to her many readers a Russian-style turn on The Fisherman and his Wife, introducing an enchanting new character whose love for simplicity wins the day and the lives of her parents.
Author Notes
Patricia Polacco was born in Lansing, Michigan on July 11, 1944. She attended Oakland Tech High School in Oakland, California before heading off to the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, then Laney Community College in Oakland. She then set off for Monash University, Mulgrave, Australia and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia where she received a Ph.D in Art History, Emphasis on Iconography.
After college, she restored ancient pieces of art for museums. She didn't start writing children's books until she was 41 years old. She began writing down the stories that were in her head, and was then encouraged to join the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. There she learned how to put together a dummy and get a story into the form of a children's picture book. Her mother paid for a trip to New York, where the two visited 16 publishers in one week. She submitted everything she had to more than one house. By the time she returned home the following week, she had sold just about everything.
Polacco has won the 1988 Sydney Taylor Book Award for The Keeping Quilt, and the 1989 International Reading Association Award for Rechenka's Eggs. She was inducted into the Author's Hall of Fame by the Santa Clara Reading Council in 1990, and received the Commonwealth Club of California's Recognition of Excellence that same year for Babushka's Doll, and again in 1992 for Chicken Sunday. She also won the Golden Kite Award for Illustration from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators for Chicken Sunday in 1992, as well as the Boston Area Educators for Social Responsibility Children's Literature and Social Responsibility Award. In 1993, she won the Jane Adams Peace Assoc. and Women's Intl. League for Peace and Freedom Honor award for Mrs. Katz and Tush for its effective contribution to peace and social justice. She has won Parent's Choice Honors for Some Birthday in 1991, the video Dream Keeper in 1997 and Thank You Mr. Falker in 1998. In 1996, she won the Jo Osborne Award for Humor in Children's Literature. Her titles The Art of Miss. Chew and The Blessing Cup made The New York Times Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2A variation of a traditional tale. Looking for mushrooms in the forest, a young girl saves a wren from a fowlers net and to show its gratitude, the bird grants her any wish. Luba realizes that she is content and when she declines the wish, the wren tells her, If ever you want for anything, come to the forest and call me. When the child tells her parents about the incident, they send her back to the wren five times, each time asking for a grander home and more riches until, after they have become Emperor and Empress of all the world, they ask to be as Gods. When the wish is granted, they are returned to their former peasant life, but are truly contented and realize that Luba is their greatest treasure. Polaccos signature illustrations are lush and vibrant. The regal colors of royal blue and crimson play against deep green, dappled brown, and ocher of the natural world. Rosy-cheeked Luba appears humble and honest in her babushka and Ukrainian peasant apparel throughout, while her parents, as they increasingly receive greater material wealth, don the clothing of royalty. Scrolled, intricate frames set the text apart from the lively folk-artlike illustrations. Like Rosemary Wellss The Fisherman and His Wife (Dial, 1998), this picture book examines true happiness and the snares of yearning for material things.Shawn Brommer, Southern Tier Library System, Painted Post, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Polacco (Rechenka's Eggs; Babushka Baba Yaga) again uses old-world Russia as the backdrop for a timeless, vigorously illustrated tale, this one a variation on The Fisherman and His Wife. Here it is a young girl who rescues an enchanted creature, a wren, which offers to grant her a wish. Content, she requests nothing, but her parents force her to bring the wren a series of rapidly escalating demands. The brilliant hues of Polacco's sprawling, full-spread paintings intensify as the parents' greed grows and they upgrade their station in life from dwelling in a humble dacha to reigning as "Emperor and Empress of all the world." Creating an effective contrast to these splendid surroundings, the artist depicts the wren's forest home as increasingly dark and foreboding. With the bird's burgeoning disgust at the parents' demands, the sky becomes blacker, the wind howls and storm clouds "rolled angrily in the sky." Youngsters may need some adult help to grasp why the wren's granting of the parents' final, "sacrilegious" wishÄ"to be as Gods"Äfinds them back in their original dacha yet "happy, and very, very content indeed." But even if it's a bit subtle, the happy ending puts an agreeable spin on the standard version of this tale, teaching the same moral in a light and positive manner. Ages 4-8. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
In a Russian twist on The Fisherman and his Wife, modest peasant girl Luba frees an enchanted wren and is granted a wish. Her parents ask for grander and grander situations, but when they ask to be as gods, they find themselves back in their original dacha, content at last. Polacco's detailed watercolors set this retelling firmly in old Russia. No source note is included. From HORN BOOK Fall 1999, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In this child-centered version of ``The Fisherman and his Wife,'' Luba, a little girl, rescues a wren from a hunter's net, and the wren offers to grant her a wish. Luba, content, turns the wren down but is sent to search for it by her parents as soon as they hear of her good deed. The wren immediately grants their wish for a better house and fertile land, but those familiar with the tale will know that the parents grow greedy, never satisfied for long with their estate and servants, their roles as rulers of the Ukraine, their days as tzar and tzarina of all of Russia. Luba, for her part, grows ever more reluctant to approach the little wren, whose temper is strained with each wish; the weather in the background becomes more and more foreboding. Finally, the parents go too far and demand to become gods. Polacco offers a solution that is almost zen-like in its simplicity, and Luba is rewarded with a happy and loving childhood. The large drawings bring Luba and her parents to life amidst the colorful splendor of the parent's accrued wealth; with a vivid text, this is very fine retelling of a well-known tale. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Booklist Review
Ages 6^-8. This original story draws on a motif used in "The Fisherman and His Wife" and other folktales. When young Luba rescues an enchanted wren, it promises to grant her wishes. Modestly, she herself wants no reward, but her parents demand bigger houses, then rulership of the Ukraine, all Russia, and the world, and, finally, "to be as Gods." With increasing irritation, the wren complies--and at the end, Luba finds her parents as poor and loving as they started out, with no memory of their former grandeur. Younger children, at least, will need an explanation to make sense of this, but they will understand Luba's embarrassment at her parents' greed; and Polacco's freely brushed watercolors are bright with decorative borders, richly patterned clothing, and exotic onion domes. For a pointed lesson on the perils of careless wishing, pair this with Paul Galdone's version of The Three Wishes (1961) or with Margaret Read MacDonald's The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle (1995). --John Peters