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Laugh and smile. Smile and laugh. That's Herr and Frau Rosen -- so happy to have a new baby boy! But when they invite all their friends in Berlin to celebrate the birth of little Knabe Rosen, they leave out one person -- the dreaded Major Krieg. When he comes anyway, he snatches the sleeping boy from the nurse's arms and predicts: "On your sixteenth birthday you will hear the drums drum... More

Laugh and smile. Smile and laugh. That's Herr and Frau Rosen -- so happy to have a new baby boy! But when they invite all their friends in Berlin to celebrate the birth of little Knabe Rosen, they leave out one person -- the dreaded Major Krieg. When he comes anyway, he snatches the sleeping boy from the nurse's arms and predicts: "On your sixteenth birthday you will hear the drums drumming as the army marches by. Off to war you'll go -- and you will not come home."

However, Tante Taube, the sleeping boy's aunt, hasn't given her blessing yet. "Instead of going off to war," she says, "Knabe Rosen will only sleep...sleep through poverty and war, bad times and sadness, until PEACE comes to Berlin."

In this remarkable modern allegory, Sonia Craddock weaves a story of the twentieth century into the familiar framework of the Sleeping Beauty tale. Leonid Gore's resplendent illustrations delicately capture the ethereal, timeless quality of the story while firmly placing it against the backdrop of Berlin.