Clever Katya: A Fairy Tale from Old Russia by Mary Hoffman

 This story is about a girl who uses her head to help out her father who gets himself in trouble over a donkey. A man gave Katya's father a horse and that horse had a baby with the father's mare, so the guy who first gave the horse wanted the foal, so he took the case to the tsar. The king gives out a riddle to the two men and says whoever answers the riddle gets the foal. The riddle is 'What is the fastest thing in the world, what is the fattest thing in the world, what is the softest thing in the world and what is the most precious?' The other guys asks a neighbour who owes him some money and the father asks Katya. I won't tell you the answer, but I'll say that Katya won. The tsar was interested in these answers and asked the father who told them to him, to which he replied his daughter. So the king asked the father to bring Katya to him, but he said that 'She must come neither on horseback nor on foot, neither naked nor dressed and neither bringing a present nor empty handed.' So she goes to him in the way he asked, and at the end of the book he marries her because she was the most clever person in the kingdom.
 
This was a nice story based on an old Russian folktale. The pictures are beautiful and colourful with nice traditional, colourful borders surrounding them. I first heard this story in grade 3 or 4 and it was one of those that I remembered to this day. It's one of those odd books you'll find where the girl gets the guy because of her brain, not her beauty. a beautiful story. I recommend.