I love children’s books and their illustrations, and often buy second-hand at this or that flea-market. By now, we have quite a collection, in a splendid array of styles. Some are out of print, and if I could afford it, I’d re-print a few of them. It feels such a loss to have them languish in the past and not be available to children today. They’d also make beautiful colouring books, or postcards.

Another little project to work on.

Recently I bought one in Russian, a language I don’t know in an alphabet I’ve long forgotten. But the illustrations were so exuberant and sunny, and the story seems to revolve around a leaping, zipping, flying pony, a young boy, a princess and some kind of treasure. The pony  has incredible energy and apparent tenderness towards the boy, cheering him up when, presumably, his quest meets with the inevitable (and necessary, or it wouldn’t be a quest) setbacks.

A few samples here – I hope they delight you as they do me.

If you can translate or at least romanize the title, please let me know, it might give a clue to the contents and it would be nice to give recognition to the author and illustrator.

But if you can’t read Russian either, feel free to send me your version of the story, based on the pictures. A prize for the best entry!

It seems to have a happy ending, which is all you need.