Every time I venture to buy a picture story book
for my daughter I only end up disappointed big time. Children’s books
now-a-days are so drab and plain boring. Our generation (from the 70s)
was immensely lucky that we grew up in the era were the books came from
the erstwhile Soviet Union. Almost every other children’s book was the
English translation of the folklore, fairy tales and ditties of Russia, Ukraine and other former soviet states. I
still remember them for their fantastic illustrations and distinctive
styles. Master illustrators like Yuri Vasnetsov and Boris Kalaushin cast
a spell on me that last till this day. They simply colored my childhood
with endless fantasy and fun. I owe a lot to these gifted illustrators
for shaping my artistic instincts as a kid.
But
unfortunately the inflow of Russian books ceased abruptly after the
80s. Now we see only lackluster books that do not appeal to the kids and on top of it too expensive. The
illustrations mostly lack in substance, scale and context. Iam shocked
to see today kids books with pages and pages of texts with no or just a
few appalling illustrations.
I
decided to dig through the web in search of the Russian books of the
good old days. To my disappointment, I realized that many Russian
publication houses had closed shop with the end of the Soviet era. I
could collect a few illustrations here and there that took me on a
nostalgic trip.
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| The Wheat stalk,Malysh publishers Moscow 1981, Ukrainian folk tales collection with drawings by Y.Rachov. |
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| Few of my favorites... |
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| Few unforgettable characters:The wily fox, the bad wolf, the Nanny goat, the clever hedgehog, the proud pussy |
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| Tales of the Amber sea- a collection of Russian fairy tales - a very distinctive illustration style ! |
 |
| Kids & Cubs by O.Perovskaya- adventurous tale of kids who pet different animals |
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| L.Yakhnin's Cardboard ClockSquare |
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| E.Rachev's illustration's for 'Cockerel' |
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| Yuri Vasnetsov's illustrations for Dancing Perch |
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| Few books that took me back in time... |
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| E.Serova's Hedgehog gloves with the classic illustrations of Boris Kalaushin |
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| Picture Stories by Nikolai Ernestovich Radlov - My most favorite of the lot! Every page told a funny story...What can I do to get this book?! |
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| The 1937 original cover page by Radlov on top..The new cover page (as published recently by New Century Book house) at the bottom - shocking! See for yourself the degeneration of illustrations in today's kids books! |
In my search, I discovered a fellow enthusiast Swetlana, who has featured many vintage books in her site - Library things. I was excited like a kid to see some of them that took me down the memory lane. How I wish to go back to the 70s and take my daughter too with me.
Laura's Animalarium is a treasure house for Illustration and art lovers.
Thanks to efforts of Mr.Rajaram Vasudevan. An exclusive blog for Russian book lovers is created .Pls visit http://booksofsovietunion.blogspot.in/...and share.
Those old Russian books were beautifully bound books and cheap, if I remember correctly. We had lots of those books at home for my sons. There used to be small small exhibitions of these books in bus stops too!
ReplyDeleteLet me show this to my son. He too will like it and go nostalgic, thank you!
Yes..They were very cheap for those days compared to the expensive crap today!As a kid I looked forward to the Chitrai Fair in Madurai to buy these books!Iam sure your son too will go nostalgic...
DeleteThese books are something close to those we used to read in our school library! It’s true even the comics are not appealing to read these days and not many kids are interested on books rather related to their subjects, the gadgets replaces their books a lot.
ReplyDeleteI rememeber those books, even we used to get russian magazines too, but for children we had other god ones too like chandamama,panchantra etc
ReplyDeleteAh, happy memories.
ReplyDeleteThe memories that are so important, good series.
ReplyDeleteWonderful post! I don't know these books but I love the illustrations!
ReplyDeleteGreat post Ashok, and I completely agree with you about children's books today.
ReplyDeleteYou found some wonderful illustrations!
You come up with the most amazing stuff!
ReplyDeleteThose children books and covers are precious. I remember enjoying the good old books when I was young. Nowadays, its all the internet, and your right, the illustrations are not as good ~
ReplyDeleteHappy day ~
It is sad that your daughter won't be able to read those books. I am a 90's child so I still got the chance to read worth reading books about adventure and friendship and not about how to get married in such a young age. This is like a time machine, drawing us back to our childhood.
ReplyDeleteMy friend,
ReplyDeleteI don't have any children but admire those that do. Great job with this.
kids time
ReplyDeleteei i forget tell you, i really liked this term, 'ashokism' :)
I agree wit you, olden books are gold.
ReplyDeletenow that's one amazing collection there
ReplyDeleteNostalgic!!
ReplyDeleteBoo and I loved those books. Most of them were given to us as prizes from our school!! I still treasure. I hope Ashu and Antu gets to enjoy them!!
classic collection
ReplyDeletelike the post
I'm a 90s child, but very familiar with these books thanks to my elder siblings! Great post, and massive, massive amounts of nostalgia. You Sir, have just made my day.
ReplyDeleteWow ! What a Treasure Trove for kids. I remember the Russian books too. Bought quite a few for my kids. Amazingly illustrated story books.
ReplyDeleteLove all these treasures you've shared with us.
ReplyDeletewhat a wonderful selection of old illustrations!
ReplyDeleteNice reading about these old treasures.
ReplyDeleteHaah, it must have taken you to your golden days! Yes, the books for kids these days are nothing when compared to these! That may be the reason for this younger generation to move away from reading habits. I remember hearing few books you've mentioned here. :)
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely fantastic!
ReplyDeletePleased to meet a fellow Russian book lover!
ReplyDeleteRadlov's Picture Stories looks delightful...
I can't believe how bad the new cover looks :(
Thanks Laura...Iam now a fan of Animalarium!
DeleteYour post took me back down memory lane ..... I remember as a kid waiting eagerly for the Sunday morning. Especially during winter breaks, to visit the District Library (Shillong). Two books to borrow for the week and as many as you can to read sitting in the children's section. How wonderful those books were, the pictures alone could carry you to a wonderland........
ReplyDeleteThis is an amazing post which took me back to those magical days of cultural exchange with India and USSR where we were flooded with beautifully drawn folk tales from various part of USSR. I might still have some of those books in 'Malayalam' at my mother's.'Raduga', 'Progress', 'Mir' most of those publishers had to close down. I miss those days and books. I want to buy the English versions of these books for my 4 year old child. Any idea where I can get them? are they still in print by some one in their original form? At least epubs?
ReplyDeleteUsually I do not learn post on blogs, but I wish to say that this write-up
ReplyDeletevery pressured me to check out and do so! Your
writing taste has been amazed me. Thank you,
quite nice article.
Also visit my web page : best kids books
Regarding Russian Books, I want to share something. There is a facebook page please follow the below link
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/pages/%E0%B4%86-%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%B4%E0%B4%AF-%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%B7%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%BB-%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%99%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%99%E0%B5%BE/393471110750681?ref=stream
Some of them in the group has decided to scan and share russian books what we have with us.
You may find more books Russian as well as non russian in the site
www.arvindguptatoys.com
Just goto the site and click on the "ENGLISH" and scroll down.
If any one who commented above is ready to scan and share share the books they have, Most welcome
Regards,
rajaramvasudev@gmail.com
www.rajaramvasudev.blogspot.com
Thanks Raja :)
DeleteSir
ReplyDeleteMy search for Russian books, reached me to this page and some other pages too.
. Hope you could visit the FB page. One interesting thing is that yesterday the daughter of Sri Moscow Gopalakrishnan and Omana( the translators) visited the page and left good comments. At least we are happy that, we could locate them.
I have started a google group where I I have shared around 11 books.
Please join the below group and download the books.
Soviet_Books@googlegroups.com
If you have any books of such kind, request you to please share that. By doing this we can preserve the treasure to future generations and also "past kids" like us
Regards
Rajaram
Sir
ReplyDeleteMy search for Russian books, reached me to this page and some other pages too.
. Hope you could visit the FB page. One interesting thing is that yesterday the daughter of Sri Moscow Gopalakrishnan and Omana( the translators) visited the page and left good comments. At least we are happy that, we could locate them.
I have started a google group where I I have shared around 11 books.
Please join the below group and download the books.
Soviet_Books@googlegroups.com
If you have any books of such kind, request you to please share that. By doing this we can preserve the treasure to future generations and also "past kids" like us
Regards
Rajaram
Kindly attract the above 31 commentators to the FB page and to the google group.......by doing so we can have a good archive of the children's literature
ReplyDeletehttp://www.booksofsovietunion.blogspot.in/
ReplyDeleteexcellent work Rajaram
DeleteThanks Rajaram for the site... i was searching for these books for a long time.....
ReplyDeleteA brilliant blog post and a trip down memory lane yet again.
ReplyDeleteDue to a very similar thought process, we've started collating Soviet books (both scanned and sourced through internet) and uploading at https://docs.google.com/folderview?pli=1&id=0B6QdKq6q5WvFYldoNVFoakRSS0k
Happy reading.
devadatta_r@yahoo.com
Meaningful blog. check Children's books with custom characters .
ReplyDelete"Looking forward to the new comic book releases from Afshari Comics." comic books stores
ReplyDelete