A poor peasant woman who has no money for gifts or a special meal for her children gets help from a kindly mother spider on Christmas.

Several animals sleep snugly in Nicki's lost mitten until the bear sneezes.

Villagers take in a flock of golden birds nearly frozen by an early snow and are rewarded with beautifully decorated eggs the next spring.

"Baba Yaga's Book of Witchcraft is an excitingly original book looking at ancient Slavic magical practices through the point of view of the legendary Baba Yaga - not the villainess of fairytales, but the inscrutable woman of the woods, the wise and powerful elder-witch, and the true spirit of Mother Nature."--