King Matt the First, one of Janusz Kor­cza­k’s most beloved tales, is the sto­ry of a boy who becomes king and sets out to reform his king­dom. He decrees that all chil­dren are to be giv­en a piece of choco­late at the end of each day. He vis­its far­away lands and befriends can­ni­bal kings. When­ev­er his min­is­ters tell him some­thing’s impos­si­ble, he puts them in jail. He dis­guis­es him­self as a sol­dier and becomes a hero. But, as in real life, fan­ta­sy is tem­pered by reality:Matt’s fel­low kings become jeal­ous of his suc­cess – and in the end, Matt falls, although it’s clear that he was the great­est king there ever was.

Now this redis­cov­ered clas­sic is avail­able again,this time­less tale shows that only through the hon­esty and spon­tane­ity of chil­dren can grown-ups begin to imag­ine and to cre­ate a bet­ter world.