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It's winter. The night shines over a fairy tale world: sugar-coated trees, crystal field, mirror-like pond. And throughout the wide surface, the lights in the sky's huge chandelier are turned on one by one, as in an immense dance room. The wild animals of the forest

At the break of dawn, the light performs wonders on the pond. Bits of broken mirrors glimmer on the water over here; steel plates glitter over there; treasures of yellow coins lay among the reeds. Rays of gold flow into the water lilies like into floating cups. A silvery

Today, under the dead leaves I foundThe yellow spiralled shell of a snail,Light and empty and very frail,That someone abandoned on the ground.  A jelly-bodied snailHas wandered summer-long around the garden,And all he had as wardenWas this humble shell,So thin and so much

Upon hills huddled together,Upon rugged fields of heather,On a grey November morning,Autumn happened without warning.  Skeletal, long-limbed, berserk,Sprinkling nature through the murkWith a branch of poison oakWielded with a spiteful jerk,Autumn's spreading all aroundAs

 Why have you caught me in my flight,Beautiful child? Oh, don't you knowI'm feeble and it hurts me so?Why do you squeeze my frame so tight? I am myself a child, like you,And just like you, I like to play. Have pity on my life this day,For I'm so frightened,

excerpt  3. THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF STING AND STUNG Sting and Stung came into being in a jar of mustard, on the very first morning after I'd dreamt of serpentine road bends and devils. Had it been necessary to invent a realm for them to come forth from – a

excerptONE-EYE-SHORTOnce upon a time there was a blond pirate who had one blue eye, while the other was covered with black cloth on purpose. Because the first ship had been taken over by sparrows, the second was on the point of sharing its fate. The ship One-Eye-Short worked

excerpt PLUSH PLUMBEOUS RETURNS TO THE TOWN OF MORE-THAN-A-WEE-BIT Once upon a time, there was a place. It was formless and nameless, and no one had yet travelled through it on the tram. At that time, hundreds of thousands of abandoned dolls had begun to wander hither and

If I remember well, we've never been underneath the Earth's shell. We'll take now a tour of sorts, in just a few words. The dashing prince lets himself slide all the way underground on a rope made from the bark of the tallest lime tree around. He goes down

The sea is for the little ones, not just for the little ones' parents and grandparents. After all, such parents at both ends do not know how to play, they say; in the sand, where they stand and you sit, on the beach, where you are so skilled with your colorful kit that's

excerpt AUREL FRECKLE ENTERS ZOOLOGY COUNTRY SUSPECTING NOTHING OF THE UNEXPECTED EVENTS THAT AWAIT FOR HIM THERE.  So, Aurel got out of the car, ready to head for Zoology Country, and Rodica Pencilcase slammed the door of the colored car with all her might, started the

excerpts THE BELLS In the city buried Under snow,As if in a duffle coat,You can hear a muffled Plaint. It's a coppery lament, Ay! Ay!. . . Like a fluttering It's passing,Over this white burialAnd it wails and wails And wails,Asking for a miracle. After it, a flock