How many times I read this book to my children! The very youngest child can understand the story line and appreciate the repetetive text (which you can edit easily for your own sanity, if necessary). We are introduced to the little chick, his mother, and his home. Danger enters the chick's world in the form of a black, hissing cat, but Mom shields the chick with her big brown wing, and clucks the cat out of the picture. The chick meets a big frog and even falls into the pond and gets wet -- which little children think is terrifically funny. The bright, colorful pictures appeal to the very young and are easy on the adult eye. It doesn't sound like much, but it ends up being a very rich, warm experience to share this book with a little one. My 13 year old saw it today, and went through it with a bg grin on his face; which is why I checked to see if it was still in print. Thankfully, you can enjoy it with children you love, too.

This is a wonderful book for small children. They will love the main character, the chick, and his adventures. The reader will also enjoy the book and the reaction of the child listening to the story. Very cute and easy to understand. A wonderful introduction to learning about chicks and their mothers.

I must've read this book a hundred times to my children and I was warmed and charmed 100 times. Simple, gentle, and way cool illustrations. A winner.

My kids recently fought over who would get this book in their personal bookcase. My boy is 5, my girl 3! Even little boys who like to watch action shows during the daytime and make guns out of tinkertoys will enjoy being put to sleep with this book...it is soothing and repetitive, and calmed both my children right down. They have nice bedtime memories, and I could probably read it every night as a ritual and they wouldn't mind. I am buying a copy for my sister-in-law's little baby who is due in May. My kids enjoy watching everything slowly going to sleep, and finally too, the reluctant little girl, who is limp in her mama's arms by the end of the book (as my own children were!). Highly recommended bedtime book, right up there with Goodnight Moon.

This delightful picture book appeals to people of all ages and is a great read-aloud to both children and adults. No one in this Korean family has ever seen a mirror, so no one has ever seen what he/she looks like! When the father brings home a mirror from a business trip and hides it in his trunk, not really knowing what it is, each member of the family sneaks a peek in the mirror, but they all see something entirely different for hilarious results. I cannot believe this book has not won major awards...it is an enchanting and laugh out loud tale!

Bulgakov is beloved for his novel "Master and Margarita", a surreal working of the Faust legend set in Stalinist Russia. These two plays "Flight" and "Bliss" show Bulgakov's real forte--drama. He authored plays (not published in his lifetime) and worked as a stage director (an assistant director, all he was allowed by the Soviet government, who knew him for an independent thinker.)

Both plays are very readable, despite the workaday translations. Bulgakov's flights of fancy and sarcasm (a future world without crime, for example) are comic yet scary. If you want to really get to know Bulgakov's work, these plays, plus "Heart of a Dog". "White Guard" and "Master and Margarita" make a good starting collection of his best works.

Central Asia, the region southeast of Russia's Ural Mountains, has arid deserts as well as vast stretches of grassland known as the steppe. This landscape and its people are the scene for the second collection in a series of folk tales from Russia translated and edited by Mirra Ginsburg. Nineteen tales were chosen from twelve cultures whose people are of mixed origin. Because their lands have been swept by migrations and invasions from time immemorial, the people have been subjected to various influences. They have lived chiefly by breeding livestock but have also built legendary cities like Samarkand and Bokhara, ancient centers of commerce between East and West.

Mikhail Bulgakov's book The Life of Monsieur de Moliere is a very biased book that is uncritical of the great French writer Moliere. Despite the author's unabashed love of Moliere, the book is a treat from beginning to end. Bulgakov feels an affinity with Moliere because he wrote under a totalitarian regime headed by Stalin in Russia and Moliere wrote during the reign of Louis XIV. Although Moliere certainly had much more freedom than Bulgakov did, he still felt the sting of censorship from religious zealots and was often persecuted by those whom he made fun of in his plays, ( nobles, doctors, the affected ladies of French society). Bulgakov praises Moliere as the greatest French writer and as one of the greatest comediens ever. Indeed history has proven him correct. Three centuries later Moliere's works are performed in almost every nation in the world. The great joy that Bulgakov feels towards Moliere infuses the entire book (sometimes to the point of unintentional farce.) But he paints a vivid and energenic portrait of the playwright, actor and director that captures the essence of his work. Many of the details of Moliere's life are unknown and Bulgakov does take Moliere's side wherever there is ambiguity. ( For example, many of his enemies have said that Moliere married his own daughter and knew that in fact she was his daughter.) Bulgakov refutes this charge as ridiculous and indeed, without proof, it should be discounted. Bulgakov takes us from Moliere's birth (a very funny telling of how the midwife who delivered him couldn't realize he was more important to history than any royal baby she may have delivered) to his tragically ironic death right after a performance of his play The Imaginary Invalid. Bulgakov wheres his love of Moliere on his sleeve and it works to perfection in this book. Moliere's plays have an energy that imbues every verse. This book is the same way. Most other biographies are staid in comparison. They rarely capture the true genius of the great writer and almost never convey the great fun embodied in his works. Mikhail Bulgakov's biography is the best book, even though it is biased, ever written about the great French playwright.

As I look back, this book is one of my fondest memories. I remember having it read to me as child, knowing the words by heart, the beautiful pictures drawing me into the world of the story. I can still see those pictures in my mind and they bring a smile to my face even now all these many years later. If you can find it for your child either used or in a library, get it. It will be a favorite, guaranteed.

My children received this book as a gift when they were small, and I have tried to buy it as a gift for others - I am delighted to see it is available! The illustrations are lovely, and the text has the same rythmic, soothing quality as the best bedtime books. As far as I am concerned, "Sun's Asleep" ranks right up there with "Goodnight, Moon."

A great political dystopia written in 1924, We lays the foundation for Brave New World and 1984 and remains shocking and relevant. The story follows a mathematician named D-503 who lives in a bleak totalitarian society. When a comely resistance leader named I-330 seduces D-503, he accidentally discovers his soul, his unique individual identity, and is nearly driven insane by the revelation. The story contains several wonderful philosophical debates about the nature of freedom, art, and government. Written in a highly poetic, sometimes challenging prose style. Not surprisingly, this novel never got published in the USSR and Zamyatin was eventually exiled because of it. That which gives us comfort induces stasis; only things that make us uncomfortable challenge us to change and grow.

Zamyatin's WE, like Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984, is a classic science-fiction novel that unmasks the chilling realities of the erosion of individuality. What makes Zamyatin's account more compelling, however, is that he wrote the novel from within the fledgeling Socialist state of 1920's Russia (it wasn't even published there until 1988). Therefore, Zamyatin can lay claim to a firsthand understanding of the fallacies of the Soviet collective unlike the eccentric British intellectuals Orwell and Huxley. Although Zamyatin's language, at times, is a bit peculiar by nature, this Twentieth Century Classics translation is perhaps the easiest to understand, as the translator shied away from word use that would not register smoothly in the mind of a contemporary English reader. If you have read Brave New World or 1984, you will certainly want to compliment them by reading this excellent masterpiece in 20th century European literature!

This novel (the edition I read was a translation from the Russian by Mirra Ginsberg in 1972) is an excellent satire by Yevgeny Zamiatin (or, Zamyatin). Reading it, I find it remarkable that Zamiatin was not sent to Siberia or executed in one of the many purges occurring in the Soviet Union at that time. Apparently, the book was never published in the Soviet Union. It appeared first in English in 1924 (and obviously had a major influence in the development of Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four") and then in Czech in 1927. The Soviet authorities began to put pressure on the author through the Writers' Union and, probably due to the help of Maxim Gorky, Zamiatin was allowed to leave for Paris in 1931 (he died in Paris in 1937). The story is an extrapolation of a totalitarian world. The population of Earth that have survived a 200-years war find themselves members of a single state (the One State) where imagination is considered a disease. In this society the individual does not count, only the multitude. The central character is D-503 (all the inhabitants are numbers in this State), a mathematician who is building a space ship to bring their "perfect" world and culture to others. The whole novel consists of D-503's journal. However, D-503 soon meets I-330, a woman who shows him that there are numbers in the One State that feel that the State is in error and are striving for a new revolution. He begins to have strong feelings for her. He thinks he is ill but he can't help himself. And, he must keep his feelings hidden from the Guardians, the One State's "protectors." What a terrific "read." I highly recommend it (as well as "1984" and "Brave New World"). As can be seen in the comments by the other reviewers, "We" is a great book to discuss: with respect to politics, history, science fiction, or literature.