Suzon and the Butterfly

Sonorous, clear, easy to remember short poems in a wonderful translation by Nina Gernet and Sergei Gippius have preserved a soft playful intonation and truly French gallantry, coquetry and kind mockery.

The book makes you want not only to reread it, but also, thanks to the wonderful illustrations by Vladimir Konashevich, to look at it over and over again. The characters and objects are always shown in full, so that, as the artist himself said, "all its parts are visible." The costumes, utensils, houses, and the characters themselves retain their national flavor.

Konashevich does not simply draw pictures. He develops and completes the text, surrounds the small poem with such a mass of eloquent "real" details that their description would take up a whole page.

For example, in the poem "Skirt" a kitty with a bow dances dashingly with a smart young lady, hilariously repeating the movements of her owner: the young lady holds the hem of her skirt with her hand, and the cat holds her long tail with her paw. And for the quatrain "Where the Squint Lives" - about a bunny who goes off somewhere every morning with a blanket under his arm - the artist creates a detailed drawn story with a sly fox peeping out of the window at the long-eared one, busily walking past. By the way, the fox has his own chicken coop on the roof, and the alarmed hens, led by the rooster, cackle and gossip about where the bunny went.

The book is recommended for meticulous examination of pictures and reading by adults to children of preschool age.

Recommended reader age: 1+

Author: French folk songs
Artist: Konashevich Vladimir
Translation: Gernet Nina, Gippius Sergey
Publisher: Melik-Pashayev
Pages: 28
Cover type: Softcover
Dimensions: 280 × 260 × 5 mm
ISBN: 978-5-00041-597-9