MISHKA, PISHKA AND FISHKA and Other Galician Tales

The American author of The Tartar's Swords (1974) draws freely on Eastern European folklore in these five tales of trickery and shifting fortunes. Their mustaches play a dominant role in the fate of brothers Mishka, Pishka and Fishka; an ogre's prized long nose proves his downfall when a young photographer plays on his vanity; Cossack and Tartar apply themselves to tricking each other; old Baba Tsigan, who reads cards, outwits death himself; and, most amusing, the ant Anton Antonovich succeeds through sheer chutzpah in closing the road to an increasingly imposing series of travelers from a beetle to Kaiser Franz Josef. An inconsequential quintet, and Kimmel lays on the folksiness a bit thick, which only makes it seem the more synthetic (as are the pictures). Still, it flows along smoothly for easy reading and diverting reading aloud.