Dear Luba, she lives so happily in her dacha in the country with her mama and papa -- until she helps a frightened wren! She only means to help the wren, as she would any creature, but when the wren returns the favor, how Luba's life changes! "Ask for anything you wish, " the wren says. Luba wants nothing, but her mama and papa want a rich estate. Then to be lords, then czar and czarina -- then rulers of the world! Where will it end?

In this blazing texture of color, Patricia Polacco, one of America's bestloved storytellers, brings to her many readers a Russian-style turn on The Fisherman and his Wife, introducing an enchanting new character whose love for simplicity wins the day and the lives of her parents.