Babushka
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While traveling, Babushka gives her gifts for the Christ child away and thinks she has nothing left to give the baby, only to discover that everything she gave away, she also ...School Library JournalPreS-Gr 1-Babushka is so obsessive about cleanliness that she tells an angel who comes heralding Jesus's birth that she'll have to wipe her feet. When the three kings invite her to join them, she says she does not have time. "What about the washing up?" she asks. She finally decides to make the journey alone and packs some gifts for the baby, which she gives away to needy folks along the way. When she realizes that she's empty-handed and starts to return home, she hears someone call her name. It's Mary welcoming her into the stable, and Babushka finds the baby surrounded by all of her gifts. She decides to hold him instead of tidying up. Based on a Russian folktale, this version is charmingly told but it is hard to see how Babushka's cleaning mania is connected to her generosity, or what lesson she is supposed to have learned at the end. The richly colored, stylized acrylic paintings feature Russian-style clothing and buildings as well as palm and fig trees. An attractive but flawed retelling.-E. M. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
\ School Library JournalPreS-Gr 1-Babushka is so obsessive about cleanliness that she tells an angel who comes heralding Jesus's birth that she'll have to wipe her feet. When the three kings invite her to join them, she says she does not have time. "What about the washing up?" she asks. She finally decides to make the journey alone and packs some gifts for the baby, which she gives away to needy folks along the way. When she realizes that she's empty-handed and starts to return home, she hears someone call her name. It's Mary welcoming her into the stable, and Babushka finds the baby surrounded by all of her gifts. She decides to hold him instead of tidying up. Based on a Russian folktale, this version is charmingly told but it is hard to see how Babushka's cleaning mania is connected to her generosity, or what lesson she is supposed to have learned at the end. The richly colored, stylized acrylic paintings feature Russian-style clothing and buildings as well as palm and fig trees. An attractive but flawed retelling.-E. M. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsAnother variation on the gifts for the Christ Child theme is the focus of this delightful tale starring the Russian grandmother character of Babushka. The amusing and well-written story features a humorous Babushka who is the epitome of cleanliness. (She tells the passing wise men they must take off their boots before coming into her tidy house.) Babushka breaks away from her cleaning to carry three gifts to the Holy Family: a toy clown and a shawl for the baby and a bottle of ginger cordial to warm the grown-ups. Along her journey, she gives away each gift to someone in need, and almost turns away from the manger scene, but Mary warmly welcomes her into the stable anyway. There Babushka sees that the others have brought along all of her gifts and they are already in use. Mary reassuringly says, "Everything you gave with love, you gave to my son, also." Tempted to clean the cobwebs in the stable, Babushka forgets those plans in order to rock the baby to sleep as hovering angels sing of peace. Enchanting acrylic paintings employ a stylized, folk-art style using flattened, distorted perspectives, jewel-bright tones, and characters that look like carved Russian dolls. This original gem of a story creates its own satisfying glow with polished tones in both words and art. (Picture book. 3-6)\ \
