Rainbow Flower by Valentin Katayev
I love some of the classics of the Soviet literature for kids and I have been looking forward to rereading the great books with my children. When I decided to take part in 2015 Summer Around the World Reading Series, I immediately though about the book “Rainbow Flower” by Valentin Katayev (Цветик-семицветик, Валентик Катаев).
A little girl called Zhenya was on her way home from a store with some provisions when she got lost and met a lady who gave her a magical flower with seven petals – each a different color of the rainbow. Zhenya uses the first one to get home and then 5 for various silly things. When only the last petal is left she uses it to cure a boy who could not walk. It’s a kind yet easy to read and understand book that my four year old loves.
You can buy a copy for your Kindle or order a book online for your personal library in Russian.
You can alo liten to the audio-book here.
I was surprised to know that the book was translated into English in 1960-ties and published with beautiful illustrations. If you or your child do not read Russian then this is a great way to get to know this story.
There also was a cartoon created based on the story.
As a follow up activity you can create a Rainbow flower of your own:
1) Here at kolobok-kolobok.ru a 12 year old Tanya explains how he made hers.
2) And this video will show you another version of the flower
Enjoy your summer reading!
Hi Anna,
Thank you for sharing the book “Rainbow flower”. I have read it when I was a little girl. Your post brought back lovely old dreams.
I am wonderimg if you know where I can get other old books such as “Stories and pictures” by Suteev and “Vitia Maleev in school and at home”.I have read them when I was little and would love to get it for my daughter. I am interested in hard copies but PDF is fine too.
Any information would be highly appreciated.
Regards
Shaparak
Thank you so much for your comment. I Love those books too and read them to my kids still. You can check out this website https://deti-online.com/ – they seem to have a good collections of children’s book I I enjoy reading with my kids.