Mara the Space Traveler by An Leysen

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Here lies another children's picture book mangled by Amazon! I cannot understand at all why any publisher would want to release this in a Kindle version, not even just for review. If there's one thing that Amazon's crappy Kindle conversion process does with utter reliability, it's that it totally mangles anything that's not plain vanilla text. This is one of many reasons reason I refuse to do business with Amazon. The Kindle version of this was chopped, shredded, julienned, and sliced and diced until the story was out of order and made no sense. Even on a iPad, the images were reliably out of order and sliced in half, and not vertical so they would have at least followed the pages, but horizontally, so it was impossible to read. Some of the text was so small that it was blurred out of legibility.

Fortunately, in both Bluefire Reader and Adobe Digital Editions it looked perfectly fine. Originally published as "Mauro de Ruimtereiziger" by Belgian artist and writer An Leysen, this is now available in English. It's beautifully illustrated (in the non-Kindle versions) and tells the thought adventure of Mara, who travels in a helicopter-like spaceship to a distant planet inhabited by little reptilian creatures of the forest. Their habitat is being threatened by the thoughtless and selfish sun-king who is drying up everything and turning it into desert under the guise of providing sunlight to everyone. Mara manages to defeat him by engaging with the water dwellers, and then she's off to another adventure!

This story was short and gorgeously illustrated, and very charming. I commend it as a worthy read.

Baba Yaga by An Leysen

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a familiar story since I read one similar to it not all that long ago. It's rooted in Slavic mythology and makes for a bit of a dire read for younger children given the threat of being eaten by a witch, though this isn't very different from quite a few of the better known and perhaps more beloved fairy tales, but it is worth keeping in mind when considering reading it to impressionable youngsters. On the up-side, it presents a tale of a self-possessed and brave girl who does what she has to, and wins out in the end.

It's a gorgeously illustrated book about this evil witch who flies around in a cauldron, eats little children, and lives in a cottage in the forest which sits on two chicken legs. The story was well written, and even when I was tempted to raise the issue of a man bereft of his wife being called a widow, which is the female form, rather than a widower, I realized that this is the very thing I rail against myself: why do men get to be called actors, that is, those who do the acting, but women are dismissed as actresses, which sounds more like something you sleep on? There are many genderist words like that, so I say, go for it! Widow it is!

The problem with this widow, though, is that he's been enchanted by Baba Yaga's sister who lures him into marrying her, and who holds him so entranced that he doesn't even see how abusive she is to his daughter who he loves and dotes on - or did. Olga's dad (mom isn't on the scene here, not in person, anyway!) falls in love under her spell, but his new wife doesn't want any step-children around. Why she didn't simply pick a guy who had no children goes unexplained, but the upshot of it is that she really doesn't like Olga's positive attitude and so sends her off to borrow a needle and thread from Baba Yaga, knowing that the child will be eaten, and she'll never have to be concerned with the little brat again.

What she doesn't know is that mom's love for Olga was so powerful that, like in the Harry Potter stories, it left behind a protection for her in the form of a nesting doll which mom bequeathed her daughter. This doll offers advice which might not seem valid at the time it's given, but which proves to be very useful when the right time comes. This doll is not about to let this child be eaten, and so with advice and guidance offered in this manner, Olga is able to survive and overcome the power of the evil stepmom.

Like I said, the story is a bit dire, but for feisty children of strong constitution, this tale will stir them to be confident and not fearful, and to be brave and resourceful. Hopefully! I liked it and I recommend it. Besides, the artwork is wonderful!