House over the cliff

Author: Darya Sergeevna Dotsuk
Illustrator: Olga Brezinskaya
Publisher: KompasGid 
Genre: Russian Children's Literature
ISBN: 978-5-00083-344-5
Pages: 96 (Offset)
Design
Weight: 206 g
Dimensions: 216x146x9 mm

When you live far from the hustle and bustle of the city, practically at the edge of the world, every day is much like the last, and time obeys striking yet unchangeable laws: autumn arrives not with the first cool evening, but with the first apple pies baked by Aunt Rufina. All events seem to be planned in advance, and there is no way to influence them—especially when you are still very young.
But Ksenya's life is far from boring; adventures seem to invent themselves, and fiction sometimes intertwines with reality in whimsical ways: a giantess lives in the house above the cliff, the neighbor turns out to be not a kind old woman at all, but a cunning Brown Bear, and Lapushka the goat is actually a beautiful girl who has been enchanted. Ksenya's world is not like the adult world: almost anything is possible in it, even an imaginary boy can become a reliable friend, even if he is sometimes indecisive. And most importantly, to help her mother, she can turn to the fairies—and they are sure to come to her rescue!

The magical realism of the novella "The House Above the Cliff" has a therapeutic effect. For the heroine, imagination and play are a refuge from reality, a way to come to terms with the truth about the adult world that she inevitably, willingly or unwillingly, discovers. For the reader, Ksenya's fantasies are a thread that, when pulled, can unravel the tangle of her feelings—and help them make sense of their own at the same time.

Darya Dotsuk is a journalist and the author of several children's books, a finalist in the Kniguru competition, and a laureate of the V. P. Krapivin Prize. "The House Above the Cliff" is a work in which the writer manages to combine the heroine's whimsical imaginary world with philosophical depth, without a hint of authorial "omniscience": it is as if there were no mediator between Ksenya and the reader at all.

The book was illustrated by Olga Brezinskaya, who also illustrated Tamara Mikheeva's novella "The Dolphin Children" (published by KompasGid). Her illustrations make the magic of a child's imagination feel real—in full harmony with the book's genre. For younger and middle school readers, "The House Above the Cliff" can serve as a gateway to the world of "grown-up" literature.
For middle school readers.