Baboushka and the Three Kings

Baboushka and The Three Kings is a children's picture book written by Ruth Robbins, illustrated by Nicolas Sidjakov, and published by Parnassus Press in 1960. Sidjakov won the annual Caldecott Medal as illustrator of the year's "most distinguished American picture book for children".[2]

Baboushka and The Three Kings

Cover with Caldecott Medal seal
Author	Ruth Robbins
Illustrator	Nicolas Sidjakov
Cover artist	Nicolas Sidjakov
Country	United States
Genre	Children's picture book
Publisher	Parnassus Press
Publication date	1960
Pages	28 pp., color illus.[1]
OCLC	169200
Dewey Decimal	398.2/1/0947 E
LC Class	PZ8.1.R5 Bab[1]

Parnassus was a small press in Berkeley, California, established in 1957 by Herman Schein, the husband of writer-illustrator Ruth Robbins.[3] Sidjakov illustrated one of its first books and during the next several years it published at least three picture books he created with Robbins as writer.[4]

Baboushka and the Three Kings retells a "Russian folktale about an old woman's endless search for the Christ child".[5] In a retrospective essay about the Caldecott Medal-winning books from 1956 to 1965, Norma R. Fryatt wrote, "Children will find in it something unusual, perhaps too removed from their experience and the Christmas story as they know it, but certainly it is a book to which they should be introduced... Primitive colors, rigid vertical lines, stylized figures, an unusual typeface that satisfied both artist and designer, – this combination of graphic skills was an experiment and one which in the main succeeded."[6]

The 28-page book includes a song "Baboushka," verse by Edith M. Thomas and musical score by Mary Clement Sanks.[1]

References

1. "Baboushka and the three kings". Library of Congress Catalog Record. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
2. "Caldecott Medal & Honor Books, 1938–Present". Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). American Library Association (ALA).
     "The Randolph Caldecott Medal". ALSC. ALA. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
3. "Smud-ged in Earthsea". Peter D. Sieruta. Collecting Children's Books (collectingchildrensbooks.blogspot.com). March 2, 2011. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
4. "Sidjakov, Nicolas". WorldCat. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
5. "Baboushka and the Three Kings". Google Books. Retrieved 2014-07-26. Internally the note quotes a Booklist review: "The strikingly effective pictures are distinctive in design and rich in color."
6. Fryatt, Norma R. (1965). "Picture Books Today". In Kingman, Lee (ed.). Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1956-1965. Boston: The Horn Book, Incorporated. pp. 276–277. LCCN 65-26759.

External links

• Parnassus Press at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Ruth Robbins at Library of Congress Authorities, with 14 catalog records