Tetka vrána – Vrána Pavel (2013)

This rhyming fairy tale tells how Aunt Crow was born and about her later adventures. Her amusing stories for children are accompanied by many colorful illustrations, and she believes that the rhymes will make them easier for readers to remember. The Czech-language book is divided into three parts. “How It Happened…” contains five stories in verse, intended primarily to be read aloud to the youngest children. “Rhymes” offers poems of six stanzas in an easily memorized, playful rhythm, chiefly as first reading for children in the first to third grades. “Aunt Crow Gets Up to Mischief” contains 18 prose stories for children who can already read independently, entertaining them with the pranks and small acts of magic of their blue friend. At readings and discussions with children and their parents, writer Pavel Vrána often heard requests for more and more of Aunt Crow’s adventures. The children insisted that she must have experienced much more than appeared in the last book. They also wanted new, shorter rhymes that they could learn quickly, while the older children asked for longer stories about how Aunt Crow could get up to mischief. They even decided what the stories should be about, so the author had no choice but to listen.