Russian-language children’s books | Cotsen Children’s Library

Dog days are here. It’s so hot and humid that all kinds of mushrooms are popping up in the grass, but that’s no reason for being bored and out of sorts waiting for school to start! There are zillions of great crafty ideas in the collection of activity books in the Cotsen Children’s Library.

Some people can’t resist playing with matches, like Heinrich Hoffmann’s Paulinchen, shown at the left. If she had lived to adulthood, perhaps she would have discovered the creative potential of the match as a building material. Constructing things with matches is a much safer way to have fun with them, although it is possible to dream up projects that require considerable outlays of time and money, plus studio space. All the replicas of famous buildings below were made entirely of matches by retired British carpenter Brian Wherry.

Twentieth-century activity books for children feature many doable projects creating little sculptures from matches and found objects. Three of my favorites are beautifully illustrated books from Denmark and the Soviet Union published during the early 1930s. This Soviet pamphlet by Eleonora Kondiain offers wordless pictures for making things out of acorns and matchsticks. About all that is needed is a table top and a jackknife.

Getting started. Eleanora Kondiain, Zheludi I spichki [Acorns and Matches]. Leningrad: GIZ, 1930, p. 3. (Cotsen 18308)

Acorn and matchstick piggies from Eleanora Kondiain, Zheludi I spichki, p. 5. Cotsen also has Kondiain’s little book with instructions for making a doll from straw and for whittling a stag from a twig. (Cotsen 18308)

Matches can be stuck in potatoes for the same purpose too, although it raises the question whether perfectly good food should be used this way… Kuznetsov’s illustrations of the match-potato sculptures make it look as if anything done to the potato is completely reversible before peeling, cutting up, and popping into a pot of boiling water. Would anyone care if the vegetables had been part of a cat or equestrian figure a little while before dinner was put on the table?

A sculpture of potatoes, matches, string, etc. I. P. Meksin, Kartoshka [Potato] illustrated by K. V. Kuznetsov. Leningrad: GIZ, 1930, p. 7 (Cotsen 21419). Opinion in the office was divided as to whether the animal being ridden is a bull, a reindeer or a donkey. Or none of the above…

This is clearly a cat. Meksin, Kartoshka (1930), p. 4. (Cotsen 21419)

The really ambitious crafter can build backdrops so the figures can be arranged in tableaux. For inspiration, look at the scenes E. Fetnam created and Kay W. Jensen captured on film in Nodder and Propper [Nuts and Corks]. The cover design makes delightful use of matches and mixed nuts…

A kangaroo family conversing in E. Fetnam’s Nodder og Propper. Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen, c.1933, p. 29. (Cotsen 95045)

Now can you make this friendly ladybug without instructions?

To see more activity books in the collection, check out Cotsen’s virtual exhibition about the Pere Castor books

Malenkiĭ Chon i dlinnyĭ Dzhon. Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatelstvo, [ca. 1928]. (Cotsen S-000117)

Malenkiĭ Chon i Dlinnyĭ Dzhon [Little Chon and Long John] is a most unusual flip book. Credited on the cover to N. Lapshin (probably Nikolaĭ Fedorovich Lapshin 1891-1942), it was published by the Soviet state publishing house, Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo (GIZ), in Leningrad around 1928. Cotsen has five other titles illustrated by Lapshin, but this is the only novelty book. The wordless flip book contains a cartoon in 55 leaves and it features a small Chinese girl who tries to get the attention of a tall British man. After she angers him, a chase ensues. Finally she trips him into a river and takes his hat as he floats downstream.

The minimalist pair in printed in four colors are obviously stereotypes, but the choice of characters might be more significant than it first appears. Given the time period of the book’s production in the Soviet Union, I don’t think it’s unfair to see undertones of anti-imperialist and anti-British sentiment in this charming cartoon about a girl finding a new hat.

Painstakingly reproduced below for your entertainment is a gif of the flip book in full:

Cotsen Children’s Library

Princeton University

Category Archives: Russian-language children’s books

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An Anti-imperialist Soviet Flip Book: Little Chon and Long John