A sweet and strange fairytale translated from Hungarian.

I absolutely loved the look behind the curtain that this story has - the dual narrative of the real world running alongside the fairytale itself.
What I read to be a child and a carer (although this is never specified) co-creating a bedtime story, is placed strategically throughout the book as a continued dialogue, questioning the characters actions, grounding the morals and adding food for thought.

The language felt just like a traditional fairytale. In fact, even though I know it was originally written in 1981, I could easily be convinced that this actually /is/ a traditional tale from Hungary, written centuries ago.

I found the illustrations... Interesting. They fitted the story perfectly, and really cemented the familiar elements of fairytale worlds to the words themselves. But I still found the side faces, occasionally with two eyes on one side, a little terrifying I won't lie. The patterns and colours however - vibrant and solid with incredible shapes.