What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

The Three Riddles
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SOLVED: Children's/YA > SOLVED. Children's book based on folktale about the clever daughter. [s]

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message 1: by Sarah (new) - added it

Sarah | 38 comments Looking for a children's book that dates back to the 80's or early 90's. It was a picture book based on the Jewish/German folktale about the clever daughter who is given the following riddle: she must appear before the king neither naked nor clothed, neither walking nor riding, neither on the road nor off it. I remember a beautiful illustration of her wearing a fishnet, and that's it! It was definitely a picture book, NOT in an anthology of folk stories, which is all I am finding on Google.


message 3: by Rainbowheart (new)

Rainbowheart | 28672 comments There's also Clever Katya, but it was pubbed in '98.


message 4: by Sarah (new) - added it

Sarah | 38 comments No, the book I am thinking of was not overtly Russian, the king was definitely not a tsar.


message 5: by Ayshe (new)

Ayshe | 4721 comments You'd remember if it was pop-up book? I found "Clever Cathy": https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Bo...


message 6: by Nóinín (last edited Feb 18, 2020 12:56PM) (new)

Nóinín (fagurfifill) | 168 comments The story is "The Peasant's Wise Daughter" ("Die kluge Bauerntochter"), #94 in Grimm's Fairy Tales. There are several re-tellings, in English mostly called "(The/a) Clever Lass" e.g. by Joseph Jacobs, Josef Štefan Kubín and Božena Němcová, and a beautiful pop-up picture book done by Vojtěch Kubašta: https://www.booklooker.de/B%C3%BCcher... , however, that won't probably not be the one - aw, I've only just noticed, that's the same one as Ayshe's suggestion. :-D


message 7: by Sarah (new) - added it

Sarah | 38 comments it definitely was not a pop-up book. I do know the origin of the story, but I am specifically looking for this (I think) Jewish retelling that I had as a child.


message 8: by Sarah (new) - added it

Sarah | 38 comments I FOUND IT! I went down the Jewish route because most of my childhood books were from Jewish bookfairs and such, and looked up some Jewish authors I know who wrote a lot of picture books, and found it! It was The Three Riddles by Nina Jaffe.


message 9: by Rainbowheart (new)

Rainbowheart | 28672 comments Glad you found it!

The Three Riddles for the link.


message 10: by SamSpayedPI (new)

SamSpayedPI | 2306 comments It's available on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/threeridd...


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