"The Blue Bead" is a fairy-tale story by Polish writer Maria Kruger, known in the Soviet Union. Known, but not to everyone, but the book is simply wonderful!
The girl Carolinka finds a blue bead that makes wishes come true, and together with her friend Piotrek, she actively exploits this magical artifact. At first thoughtlessly. However, having discovered that the bead's powers are gradually running out, children learn to filter and accurately formulate their requests. It all starts with “I want ice cream”, “I want cake”, “I want the porridge to disappear from the plate”, “let a chicken appear in our kitchen”. But then the heroes have a higher and noble goal - to prevent the closure of the city park, and here the children have to think about what they can do themselves, and what is beyond their capabilities, which means they will have to resort to magic. By the end of the book, the children reach the heights of consciousness, and their final wish comes from the series “happiness for everyone, for free, and let no one leave offended!”
The characters spend a significant part of the story disguised as invisible people, flying over the city, talking to animals - this is a side effect of owning the bead. Even an installation in a department store depicting Baba Yaga’s gingerbread house comes to life in the presence of a bead, stone lions jump from their pedestals and help children. It’s as if everything living and inanimate knows the blue bead and obeys its power. Everything except people. What kind of thing is this? From this point of view, the story is most reminiscent of “Mary Poppins”: there, too, in Mary’s presence, everything that exists stands up and takes a stand, and only people do not notice that magic is happening next to them. Both the Blue Bead and Mary Poppins are some kind of omnipotent beings of unknown origin, and happy is the one in whose childhood they suddenly materialized.
Very pleasant background of the story: a summer European town, holidays, children playing in the courtyards. It is perfectly conveyed in the illustrations. And the publication itself, so warm and attractive, when in your hands, invites you to immediately flip through these snow-white pages and plunge into a real fairy tale.
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