Babushka: A Christmas Tale

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Like so many before her though, she found herself in the irresistible tractor beam of the Kennedy assassination, and the unanswered questions about what happened on that sunny day in Dealey Plaza that still affect attitudes to government to this day. Darn! I just hate books where wolves are made out (as they are in many fairy tales, and this is a sort of fairy tale) as aggressive against humans and as vicious/bad/evil. Unfortunately, that’s what happens in a part of this story.

There was no deathbed confession, no tell-all letter, no smoking gun document left for the chronicler of her life. This is a remake of an old Russian folk tale. It includes elements of Russian folklore (including Russian expressions), a creature of legends and a moral lesson. ("Those who judge one another on what they hear or see, and not on what they know of them in their hearts, are fools indeed!") I was worried enough that the Babushka Lady could be Jerrie that I confronted Jerrie,” she says. “It took me a while to be able to work up to the conversation with Jerrie and her answers to that conversation were not particularly reassuring to me.” I appreciated how Russian words are interspersed throughout the story, and the illustrations were very special: intricate and colorful and in an interesting style. My favorite illustration was the picture of Babushka Baba Yaga planning her makeover, dipping her finger in the water, surrounded by the forest animals and the borrowed real babushkas’ clothes.

Look her up on Wikipedia and you will find a lengthy entry about her extraordinary life as a pioneer, adventurer and champion of women’s rights. This is the story of a “creature” who is loathed and feared, yet who is actually lonely and has strong maternal feelings and yearns for a relationship with a child. She finds a way to be a surrogate grandmother. The story’s meaning is captured by a line toward the end of the book: “Those who judge one another on what they hear or see, and not on what they know of them in their hearts, are fools indeed!” This book can be used with students ages K-3. Because of its high lexile level and adult directed code (AD570L-AD670L), I would recommend it as a read-aloud. Educational concepts that can be taught are characters, plot, main events and summarizing. Topics to explore with students include endangered species, prejudice (judging people based on their appearance), grandparents and extended family (who don’t necessarily have to be blood relations), diversity in family structure and society, and foreign culture and language. The rest of the message is lovely, especially knowing from reading other Polacco books, how much she treasured her relationship with her grandmother. A number of people fell down the JFK assassination rabbit hole never to return,” she writes, “and I wasn’t in a hurry to become one of them.”

This has not been an easy process,” she says. “It was a reluctant process for me. It’s not an easy story to tell or one that I enjoy telling, frankly. It’s a tough story to talk about America and a woman I know and show what I found out about her and publicly say it. I wish I would take more joy in this moment, I do take a sense of relief and satisfaction that I’m at the end, but it wasn’t something I relished. I just felt an obligation to tell a difficult story.” Although I have nothing to say against the moral Patricia Polacco seeks to inculcate in her young readers, with this revisionist tale - "Those who judge one another on what they hear or see, and not on what they know of them in their hearts, are fools indeed!" declares one old woman, after the happy reunion of Baba Yaga and Victor - I wish she has used some other folk-figure to illustrate it. Baba Yaga is meant to be fearsome, but also ambiguous. She's a villain - except when she isn't, and is helping (sometimes reluctantly) the hero and/or heroine. She's the figure of the old woman, both feared and respected - a figure of power: dangerous, but not always adversarial. To make her into a cozy old grandmother - a character whose sole desire is to be involved with child-rearing - is like a slap in the face, whether Polacco intended it or not, to all those readers, of whatever gender, who need to see a range of feminine characters in their stories. By the way, the book cover says that the author is also the illustrator, and I absolutely love the cover illustration with this adorable old lady, but the fact remains that what she wears is NOT Russian national dress (although it could be Polish, I'm no expert), her hair is done in a way no Russian village woman would wear it, she is portrayed next to a stove which is not Russian, and she's holding a broom of a kind totally unknown-of in Russia before 1991.She says that while she cannot be certain who the Babushka Lady is: “I am certain that the Babushka [Lady] is an under-researched character, that she was completely overlooked. If that happened today there would be a manhunt for her and you would expect to see the footage.” It would have made for fascinating viewing, but the more time she spent with Cobb the more she began to suspect that something about her story didn’t add up. A woman called Babushka (although she appears youngish in the early panels) who is famous for her housekeeping smells cinnamon one night and steps outside to see the Three Wise Men on their way to find baby Jesus. They invite her to come with them. Naturally she doesn't know what they're talking about so she declines and goes to bed. The next morning she is overcome with an obsessive desire to follow them and goes running off down the road. Naturally she doesn't and ends up wandering the earth for all eternity, dispensing the occasional treat to a tot to make up for never giving a gift to the Christ Child.