#159 of 1001 · January 6, 2021

Sometimes the title of a book just calls out to you, perfectly establishing the characters and setting and plot, and you know right away that you’re going to be entertained. To that end, here’s Robert D. San Souci and Alexi Natchev’s Peter and the Blue Witch Baby. See? Instantly, the curiosity is piqued. Who is Peter? A wide and good-natured Tsar. Who is the Blue Witch Baby? A wicked sorceress who tricks her way into the palace in the guise of a newborn girl. While the young king is away wooing the Little Sister of the Sun, the infant turns blue, swells to a gargantuan size, and devours everything in sight with her iron teeth. San Souci masterfully sustains the tension as Peter first confronts and then evades the enormous creature, whom Natchev portrays as an eerily cute monstrosity, the figure of a plump toddler perverted to a malevolent, lumbering nightmare. A note for folklore enthusiasts: without citing a specific tale, the book’s front matter identifies this story as an adaptation of Russian folklore. San Souci’s source appears to be a tale from Narodnye Russkie Skazki, compiled by Aleksandr Afanas’ev, called “The Witch and the Sister of the Sun”, in which the horror is a bit subtler. Here, the antagonist is not a giant blue creature at all but the hero’s natural-born sister, a cannibal witch who devours their parents. #blue #witch #baby #tsar #russia #russian #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks