With all the elements of a fairy tale (an enchanted wood, a trapped heroine, a terrifying giant, a sprinkling of magic, kindness from animals and a love story) Pushka is a story to capture the imagination. There’s just the right amount of adrenalin and fear (Will the giant get his way? Will Lulu, the giant’s harp-playing ballerina of a puppet be able to escape?), made bearable by the beauty and wonder of the setting and a joke or two to relieve the tension (Pushka is, after all, a circus clown).

The illustrations have a dream-like quality about them with lots of soft-focus, pastel tones. The story is great fun to read aloud, with opportunities to make silly noises, to sing, and to growl. The storytelling itself has quite a cinematic feel; the events unfold in the present tense, and the pacing of the story times points of tension with page turns to perfection.

In fact, it turns out that Stephen Mackey has created an animation of Pushka which you can watch here. It isn’t identical to the book (and I don’t know which was created first), but both formats share a lot of elegance, charm and magic.

Hopefully the animation will inspire you to seek out the book. It’s an enchanting fairy story told with pace, simplicity and grace.

So here’s how M and J turned Pushka into their play. Of course there were billboards advertising the show:

Tickets and programmes were printed to sell:

We had to create a water squirting flower for Pushka to use to try to dampen the fire. We used this tutorial as our guide:

Here’s our finished flower (it worked amazingly well!):

The stage was set with trees made from huge cardboard rolls (Thanks Grandpa!) with paper cone branches taped on. Plenty of sparkly lights and glittery snowflakes (instead of the stars in the book) completed the scene with just the right hint of wintery-ness.

We used a brio train to represent the circus caravan:

Casting was made a little more complicated by the fact that both girls wanted to be Lulu. This was solved by having an intermission half way through the play when they swapped roles and costumes.

I played the mean old giant, and we took the curtain call all together.

We prepared a soundtrack for our play:

Other activities which would be fun to try alongside reading Pushka include:

Did you or your kids put on a show over Christmas? Did you go to see a show as a family?
Oh, and if you’re a (fairly) regular reader of the blog and haven’t left a comment on yesterday’s post, please head on over there and do so!

Disclosure: I received my copy of this book from the publisher. This review, however, remains my own and honest opinion.

A fairy godmother came to me in the form of Angels Fancy Dress who offered me the chance to review one of their costumes. I opted for the Cat in the Hat costume. M and J had already decided that they wanted to use some of their dressing-up stash to go to school dressed as Tiger Lily and Tinkerbell respectively and so here we are yesterday morning ready to go to school:

My costume did the trick perfectly for the day – it was cool, easy to wear and comfortable. I walked to school in the morning wearing it and had several cars beep at me on the way!

Thanks to Angels Fancy Dress for providing an eye-catching costume that fitted the bill perfectly for Book Day.

Based on a true story from 13th century Norway, The Race of the Birkebeiners tells how a small band of peasant warriors, the Birkebeiners, rescued the heir to the Norwegian throne, the infant Prince Hakon from his enemies by skiing across mountain in blizzard conditions. A tale of courage and faith, this exciting story would make an excellent, unusual choice for a Christmas book; the events not only take place at that time of the year but Christian faith is also a central theme throughout. That said, don’t wait till Christmas to look for this beautiful book as it is also a lovely introduction to several aspects of Norwegian culture, history and geography.

Mary Azarian’s illustrations, woodcuts handtinted with quite intense watercolours, are stunning and a perfect match for the historical setting of the book. Like the modern text based on an ancient saga, Azarian’s work also feels fresh yet full of echoes from the past.

The Birkebeiners, literally translated from the Norwegian as “Birch Leggers”, are so called because their armour consisted of birch bark wrapped around their legs. Thus the journey which began with reading The Race of the Birkebeiners continued with us going on a Birch tree hunt. Fortunately Silver Birch trees are pretty easy to spot, and the girls loved looking out for them, in gardens and in the local park.

We found a dead Silver Birch and this gave the girls the perfect opportunity to strip some bark from it – they loved the silver sheets they were able to peel off.

This bug caused a squeal of delight too!

Once home the girls wanted to be Birkebeiners themselves so shields were made…

… and the birch bark we had collected was used to create armour.

Then our very own Birkebeiners ran riot!

The Race of the Birkebeiners: ** (two out of three stars)

Music that might go well with reading The Race of the Birkebeiners includes:

Other activities which you could do alongside reading The Race of the Birkebeiners include:

As it happens M and I have recently read another book in which birch bark is a major feature – The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. If you or your children enjoyed the Laura Ingalls Wilder books then please, please read The Birchbark House. It’s set at a very similar time in history but is about the life of a Native American family experiencing some of what Laura and her family also experience. It’s wonderfully written and profoundly moving – I burst into tears when I read the last paragraphs of it to M – and it will enrich your lives, I’m sure of it.

Have you read any other books written by Lise Lunge-Larsen or illustrated by Mary Azarian? I’ll be highlighting some more books by Lunge-Larsen in my next post, a round up of Norwegian picture books, and this is a book illustrated by Azarian I’ve had my eye on for a while, but I’m always interested in hearing your recommendations!