The story of Kolobok - the little round roll or bun, who runs away from his creators, and teases a series of animals, before finally being outwitted (and eaten) by a fox - can be found in many Slavic folk traditions. Irina Zheleznova, for instance, includes the Ukrainian variant, The Little Round Bun in her collection of Ukrainian Folk Tales. Similar tales, about runaway pancakes, have been recorded in Germany (see Carl and Theodor Colshorn's Märchen und Sagen aus Hannover) and Norway (Asbjørnsen & Moe's Norwegian Folk Tales). Here in the United States, of course, we have the tale of The Gingerbread Man.

Marcia Brown, whose folkloric retellings include Stone Soup and Once a Mouse..., presents the Russian version of this widespread tale in The Bun, complete with her signature illustrations, done this time in bright reds, greens, and browns. I was happy to stumble across this adaptation of the story, mostly because of the many folkloric associations mentioned above, but am not surprised that it has gone out of print. A Russian-speaking friend assures me that the Bun's little song is quite amusing in the original, but I don't think it translates very well here, and I have a hard time imagining that young English readers will be particularly enthralled with it - particularly when they have The Gingerbread Man to turn to... ( )