While the illustrations are lovely, as all of Gennady Spirin's works are, the story line is very hapzardly poor, both in structure and plot.

The plot contains fairytale like happenings, yet it seemed all over the place, understandable. I don't even know how to write the review.

Three sisters expressed their wishes. One wanted to become the Tsar's wife so there could be a magnificent feast
Sister #2 would spin the best linen for everyone
Sister #3 wanted to become the tsarina and have a strong and brave son.

Tsar Saltan hears the wishes and was captivated by the wish of Sister #3. He wanted to marry her, but not take her away from her other sisters. So, one would be the cook, the other a weaver at his court. This terribly annoyed the other two sisters. The wedding took place and the youngest sister knew she was pregnant and her wish would be fulfilled.

The Tsar went away for a long time and left the sisters together with the Tsar's cousin. This trio made plans to destroy the Tsarina. They mad an announcement that the baby was born and it was a monster. The Tsar took the news well and said he would judge for himself on his return.

This message was intercepted and another in its place said "Drown the tsarina and her child deep in the sea." Following the orders, both the baby and the Tsarina were placed in a wooded keg and taken out to sea.

The barrel opened, the baby now a boy saw a swan attached by a hawk. The swan rewarded him for saving her and promised all his wishes would come true.

The boy prince became a knat and stung one of the sisters. Hereafter, the plot unravels. The knat becomes a fly. The fly becomes a wasp.

In the end, the son is grow, becomes a prince. He forgave the two sisters and his cousin but they could never be in the presence of the swan

They all lived happily ever after.

Yikes, I don't even know if what I wrote captured the essence of this multifaceted story.

It is not a story that is worthy of the beautiful artistry of Gennady Spirin.

No Stars for this tale.

I had mixed feelings about this book. It was a very mediocre story, it being just a simple fairytale. I enjoyed the story in itself, as it had all the great elements of a fairytale. For example, the book contained a lot of impossible happenings, such as the prince growing up from a baby to a young man in a barrel at sea with no food or water. The book also contained a threesome of villainous characters who conveniently sabotaged the main characters: “the tsarina’s sisters had plenty of time to nurse their grudges. Together with the tsar’s cousin, who was also a jealous woman, they made terrible plans to destroy the tsarina.” And finally, the story also contained a lot of magic that comes from a magical swan princess that gives the prince and his mother, the tsarina, a city and palace, turns him into various bugs, and gives him anything his heart desires. This is all due to his valiant act that saved the princess from impending doom. The story contains all the elements of a great, far-fetched, adventurous fairy tale which I enjoyed in that itself. However, the reason why I felt so mixed about this book was that even though the story contained many interesting elements, the writing was very dry and contained no surprising or engaging techniques. The book did not stand out to me, compared to many of my other books, in that it was not extremely good and was not horribly bad. The story did not leave a lasting impact on me and did not engage or fully capture my attention when reading it. ( )