Abridged Dragoon Stories. The story is a cunning way

“Deniska's Stories” is a collection of cheerful, funny and very instructive stories about the life of a little boy. Possessing a rich imagination, an inquisitive mind and foolish energy, the main character more than once found himself in the center of all kinds of events.

Summary of “Deniska’s Stories” for a reader’s diary

Name: Deniska's stories

Number of pages: 256. Dragunsky V. Yu. “Deniska’s stories.” Publishing house "Malysh". year 2014

Genre: Storybook

Year of writing: 1959

Main characters

Denis Korablev is a cheerful, mischievous, inquisitive boy.

Denis's parents are smart, kind, understanding people.

Mishka is Denis's best friend, with whom he gets into different stories.

Plot

Funny things often happen to Denis. One day, when Deniska was very bored, he decided to exchange his wonderful toy dump truck for a firefly in a box.

Mom couldn’t persuade Denis to eat porridge for a long time. But the boy didn’t like the porridge so much that he threw it out the window and told his mother that he had eaten it. But it soon became clear that the porridge had fallen on a passer-by, and Deniska was hit hard by her mother. This is how the boy realized for the first time that everything secret was becoming clear.

One day Deniska and his friends decided to play painters while the real workers went to lunch. The guys painted all the walls, and also painted each other, and even the stranger in the white suit.

Denis and his faithful friend Mishka, being late for school, decided to make up plausible excuses on the way. But when the guys entered the classroom, their stories did not match, and the teacher quickly caught them in a lie.

When the school holidays began, the teacher promised the children a costume party. Mishka said that he would be in a gnome costume, but Deniska was confused - his mother was in a sanatorium, and there was no one to make a carnival costume. But Denis was not at a loss - he put on fishing boots, a straw hat with flowers, sewed a tail to his pants and drew a mustache for himself. So he became Puss in Boots, and won two books for the best costume at the matinee.

Retelling plan

  1. Firefly in a box.
  2. The secret becomes clear.
  3. Game of painters.
  4. Excuses didn't work.
  5. The best costume for a matinee.

the main idea

Children's dreams shape a child's personality and help him overcome many obstacles while growing up.

What does it teach

The book teaches you to be kind, sympathetic, it teaches friendship and mutual assistance, as well as the importance of obeying your parents.

Review

Childhood is the best time in a person’s life, when there are no serious problems or worries, and the world around is painted in the brightest colors. You just need to try to forever preserve childlike spontaneity and sincerity in your heart, so as not to harden your soul and become bitter.

Proverbs

  • Every youth is full of playfulness.
  • Childhood is a golden time.
  • To live and grow up, and also to grow smarter.

What I liked

I liked that every child could recognize themselves in the faces of Mishka and Deniska. There is probably not a single child who does not commit mischief and find himself in funny situations.

Reader's diary rating

Average rating: 4.6. Total ratings received: 47.

Who among us does not remember Deniska Korablev, the famous hero of funny stories? This wonderful book was written by Viktor Yuzefovich Dragunsky. “Deniska’s stories” are easy to understand by ear, so they can be read to children from four years of age. Younger schoolchildren will be happy to recognize themselves in the book: after all, they also don’t always want to do their homework, read books, or study extra during the summer holidays, when it’s hot outside and all their friends are playing in the yard.

A summary of the book by Victor Dragunsky “Deniska's Stories” will help you in a situation where you need to immediately refresh your memory of the names of the main characters. Want to know what this book is about? Below is a retelling of the work “Deniska’s Stories”. A brief summary of the text will allow you to remember the main points of the story, the characters of the main characters, and the true motives of their actions.

"It's alive and glowing"

This story begins with the boy Deniska waiting for his mother in the yard. She probably stayed late at the institute or at the store, and doesn’t even suspect that her son has already missed her. The author very subtly emphasizes that the child is tired and hungry. Apparently, he doesn’t have the keys to the apartment, because it’s already starting to get dark, the lights come on in the windows, but Deniska doesn’t move from her place. Standing in the yard, he feels himself starting to freeze. While he is watching what is happening around him, his friend Mishka Slonov runs up to him. Seeing his friend, Deniska rejoices and temporarily forgets about his sadness.

Mishka praises his toy dump truck, wants to trade it and offers Deniska various items and his toys. Deniska replies that the dump truck is a gift from dad, so he cannot give it to Mishka or even exchange it. Then Mishka uses the last opportunity to get a toy dump truck - he offers Deniska a live firefly that glows in the dark. Deniska is fascinated by the firefly, its magnificent glow that spreads from a simple matchbox. He gives Mishka the dump truck, saying: “Take my dump truck, for good, and give me this star.” Mishka goes home happy, and Deniska no longer feels so sad waiting for his mother, because he felt that there was a living creature next to him. Soon mom returns, and she and Deniska go home for dinner. Mom is sincerely surprised how her son could exchange a good toy for “some kind of firefly”

This is just one of the stories representing Deniska's Stories. The summary shows that the main theme is loneliness and abandonment. The boy wants to go home, he is tired and hungry, but his mother lingers somewhere and thereby prolongs Deniska’s feeling of inner suffering. The appearance of a firefly warms the child’s soul, and it is no longer so difficult for him to wait for his mother to appear.

"The secret becomes clear"

A very funny story in which Deniska refuses to eat semolina porridge for breakfast. However, his mother remains adamant and tells him to eat everything to the end. As a “reward”, she promises her son to take him to the Kremlin immediately after breakfast. Denis is very inspired by this prospect, but even this cannot help overcome his dislike for semolina. After another attempt to put a spoonful of porridge into her mouth, Deniska tries to salt and pepper it, but these actions do not improve it, but only spoil it, acquiring a completely unbearable taste. In the end, Deniska goes to the window and pours the porridge onto the street. Satisfied, he puts the empty plate on the table. Suddenly the front door opens and a man enters the apartment, smeared from head to toe with semolina porridge. Mom looks at him in confusion, and Deniska understands that he will no longer get into the Kremlin. The man indignantly says that he was going to be photographed, so he put on his best suit, and suddenly hot porridge poured on him from above from the window.

This is the second story representing Deniska's Stories. The summary shows that sooner or later everything hidden is discovered and brings big trouble.

"Top - down - diagonally"

One day Deniska, Mishka and the neighbor girl Alyonka were walking near the house. And their yard was undergoing renovations. The guys heard and saw how the painting workers were getting ready to leave for lunch. When the painters left for lunch, it turned out that they had left the barrels of paint in the yard. The guys began to paint everything they could get their hands on: a bench, a fence, an entrance door. It was very interesting for them to watch how the paint itself came out of the hose and quickly colored everything around. Alyonka even managed to paint her legs to look like a real Indian.

This is the third story representing Deniska's Stories. The summary shows that Deniska, Mishka and Alyonka are cheerful guys, although they got a lot of trouble for that incident with the paint.

"Green Leopards"

Do you like to get sick? No? But Deniska, Mishka and Alyonka love him. In this story, they share with readers the benefits of different types of illnesses: from the common cold to chickenpox and sore throat. Moreover, friends consider chickenpox to be the most “interesting” disease, because at the moment of exacerbation of the disease they had the opportunity to look like leopards. And also, the guys think, “the main thing is that the disease is more severe, then they’ll buy whatever you want.”

The main idea of ​​the story is fully illustrated by its summary. V. Dragunsky (“Deniska’s Stories”) emphasizes that attention to a sick child is always greater, but it is still very important to remain healthy.

“Fire in the outbuilding or feat in the ice”

One day Deniska and Mishka were late for school. On the way, they decided to come up with a worthy excuse so that they would not get too bad from the class teacher, Raisa Ivanovna. It turned out that coming up with a plausible version is not so easy. Deniska suggested telling that they allegedly saved a small child from a fire, and Mishka wanted to tell about how the baby fell through the ice and his friends pulled him out of there. Before they had time to argue which was better, they arrived at school. Each of them put forward their own version, which made it clear to everyone that they were deceiving. The teacher did not believe them and gave both of them unsatisfactory grades.

The main idea of ​​this story is emphasized by its summary. V. Dragunsky (“Deniska’s Stories”) teaches that adults should not be deceived. It is better to always tell the truth, whatever it may be.

“Where has this been seen, where has this been heard”

A very funny story in which Deniska and Mishka undertake to perform at a school matinee. They volunteer to sing a duet and tell everyone that they can handle it. Only at the performance suddenly a misunderstanding occurs: for some reason Mishka sings the same verse, and Deniska, due to the situation that has arisen, has to sing along with him. Laughter can be heard in the hall; it seems their debut was not a success. The main idea: you need to better prepare for important events.

"The Tricky Way"

In this story, Deniska tries her best to come up with a way that would allow her mother to be less tired of housework. She once complained that she barely had time to wash the dishes for her household and jokingly announced that if nothing changed, she would refuse to feed her son and husband. Deniska began to think, and the wonderful idea came to his mind to eat food alternately, and not all together. As a result, it turned out that the dishes would be consumed three times less, which would make it easier for my mother. Dad came up with another way: take on the obligation to wash the dishes every day with his son. The main idea of ​​the story is that you need to help your family.

|
Deniskin's stories, Deniskin's stories watch
literary cycle

Victor Dragunsky

Original language: Date of first publication:

"Deniska's stories"- a series of stories by Soviet writer Viktor Dragunsky, dedicated to incidents from the life of a preschooler, and then a junior school student, Denis Korablev. Appearing in print since 1959, the stories became classics of Soviet children's literature, were republished many times and filmed several times. They were included in the list of “100 books for schoolchildren” compiled in 2012.

The prototype of the main character of the stories was the writer’s son Denis, and one of the stories mentions the birth of Denis’s younger sister Ksenia. As Yuri Nagibin wrote in his anniversary essay about Dragunsky, “Deniska’s Stories grew out of his immense love for his son, out of greedy attention to the world of childhood that opened up before him.”

  • 1 Plot
  • 2 Main characters
  • 3 List of stories
  • 4 Film adaptations
  • 5 Productions
  • 6 Exhibitions
  • 7 See also
  • 8 Notes
  • 9 Links

Plot

The stories take place in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Moscow (for example, the events of the story “Amazing Day” occur on the day of German Titov’s flight into space).

Denis lives with his parents in the center of Moscow, on Karetny Ryad (“Adventure”), not far from the Circus (“No worse than you circus people”). This is an ordinary boy, with whom funny or curious incidents happen every now and then. So he pours his porridge out of the window in order to quickly go with his mother to the Kremlin, and when a citizen with a policeman comes to them, covered in porridge, he understands what his mother’s words “The secret becomes clear” (“The secret becomes clear”) mean. One day, while going to the circus, he sees an amazing girl on a ball, but the next time, when he brings his dad to look at her, he finds out that she went with her parents to Vladivostok (“Girl on a Ball”). another time at the circus, he accidentally changes places with another boy, as a result of which the clown Pencil grabs him and, swinging on a swing, takes him with him under the circus dome (“No worse than you circus people”). During a trip to the zoo, Shango the elephant almost eats his brand new radio. At a children's party at the Metalist club, Denis drinks a bottle of citro to gain up to 25 kilograms of weight and win a subscription to the Murzilka magazine, which he shares with his friend Mishka (“Exactly 25 kilos”). He begins to paint the entrance door with a hose left by the painters and gets so carried away that he paints not only the door, but also his neighbor Alyonka, and the suit of the house manager Alexei Akimych (“Top to bottom, diagonally!”). While playing hide and seek in a communal apartment, he climbs under the bed of his grandmother-neighbor, and when she closes and goes to bed, he is afraid that he will spend the rest of his life there (“Twenty Years Under the Bed”). He suggests that the mother, who complains about the mountains of dishes, wash only one utensil a day, and everyone will eat from it in turn (“The Tricky Way”).

Denis has a lot of adventures at school. She and Mishka are late for class, but they tell such different stories about the reason for their lateness that their cunning is immediately revealed (“A fire in the outbuilding, or a feat in the ice...”). At the carnival, Denis, with the help of Mishka, dresses up in a Puss in Boots costume, and then shares the prize with Mishka for the best costume (“Puss in Boots”). During a school trip to the cinema to see a film about the Reds and Whites, he encourages the boys of the class to “attack”, shooting from a toy pistol (“Battle of the Clear River”). During music lessons, he loves to sing and tries to do it as loudly as possible (“Glory to Ivan Kozlovsky”). He takes part in a school play behind the scenes, but loses the bell, and instead of hitting the chair with a board (pretending to be shot), he hits the cat (“Death of the Spy Gadyukin”). He forgets to study his lessons, as a result of which he cannot recite Nekrasov’s poem about a small peasant, and pronounces the name of the main river of America as Misi-pisi (“Main Rivers”)...

Main characters

External images
Victor Dragunsky with his son Denis
  • Denis Korablev is a Moscow boy, in some stories he is still a preschooler, in some he is a student of 1st, 2nd or 3rd grade “B” (first an October boy, and then a pioneer).
  • Denis's dad.
  • Denis's mother.
  • Mishka Slonov is Denis's classmate and best friend, his companion in most adventures.
  • Kostya is a friend of Denis and Mishka.
  • Alyonka is a girl younger than Denis and Mishka, Denis’s neighbor.
  • Raisa Ivanovna is a school literature teacher.
  • Boris Sergeevich is a school music teacher.

List of stories

  • Englishman Paul
  • Watermelon Lane
  • White finches
  • Main rivers
  • Goose throat
  • Where has this been seen, where has this been heard...
  • Twenty years under the bed
  • Girl on the Ball
  • Deniska is daydreaming
  • childhood friend
  • Dymka and Anton
  • Uncle Pavel the stoker
  • Pets' corner
  • Enchanted letter
  • The smell of heaven and shag
  • Healthy thought
  • Green leopards
  • And we!
  • When I was a child
  • Puss in Boots
  • Red ball in the blue sky
  • Chicken bouillon
  • Motorcycle racing on a vertical wall
  • My friend the bear
  • There is a lot of traffic on Sadovaya
  • You must have a sense of humor
  • No bang, no bang!
  • No worse than you circus people
  • Independent Gorbushka
  • Nothing can be changed
  • One drop kills a horse
  • He is alive and glowing...
  • First day
  • Before bedtime
  • Spyglass
  • A fire in the outbuilding, or a feat in the ice...
  • Dog Thief
  • The wheels sing - tra-ta-ta
  • Adventure
  • Professor of sour cabbage soup
  • Workers crushing stone
  • Talking Ham
  • Tell me about Singapore
  • Exactly 25 kilos
  • Knights
  • From top to bottom, diagonally!
  • My sister Ksenia (New Year's gift)
  • Blue Dagger
  • Glory to Ivan Kozlovsky
  • Elephant and radio
  • Lyalka the Elephant
  • Death of the spy Gadyukin
  • Battle of the Clear River
  • The Ancient Mariner
  • The secret becomes clear
  • Quiet Ukrainian night...
  • Third place in butterfly style
  • C in behavior
  • Amazing day
  • teacher
  • Fantômas
  • Tricky way
  • Man with blue face
  • Chicky kick
  • What does Mishka like?
  • That I love…
  • ...And what I don’t like!
  • Grandmaster hat

Film adaptations

Several films were made based on Deniska's Stories in the 1960s and 1970s, including two two-part television films:

  • 1962 - Funny stories
  • 1966 - Girl on the ball
  • 1970 - Magic power (short story “Avengers from 2nd B”)
  • 1970 - Deniska’s stories (from four short stories)
  • 1973 - Where has it been seen, where has it been heard (short film)
  • 1973 - Captain (short)
  • 1973 - Spyglass (short film)
  • 1973 - Fire in the outbuilding (short film)
  • 1974 - Glory of Ivan Kozlovsky (short film, in the film magazine “Yeralash”)
  • 1976 - In secret around the world (2 episodes)
  • 1979 - The amazing adventures of Denis Korablev (2 episodes)

Productions

Performances based on the stories of the cycle were repeatedly staged in theaters. In addition, in 1993, the Ural composer Maxim Basok created the children's musical “Deniska's Stories” (more than 20 versions of productions with different combinations of four stories, libretto by Boris Borodin). On April 5, 2014, the premiere of the play “Deniska’s Stories” took place, staged by the Theater Company “KrisArt”, on the stage of the Palace of Culture named after. Zueva.

Exhibitions

  • In January-February 2013, the State Literary Museum hosted an exhibition “Denis Korablev and others” about the family and books of Victor Dragunsky, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the author. The exhibition was attended by Denis and Ksenia Dragunsky, more than 50 works by the permanent illustrator of Dragunsky’s books and his friend Veniamin Losin were presented.

see also

  • “Little Nicolas” - a French series of funny stories about a schoolboy boy

Notes

  1. V. I. Abramova. DRAGUNSKY, Viktor Yuzefovich // Brief literary encyclopedia: 9 volumes - T. 2: Gavrilyuk - Zulfigar Shirvani / Ch. ed. A. A. Surkov. - M.: Sov. Encycl., 1964.
  2. Alla Dragunskaya. About Victor Dragunsky. Life, creativity, memories of friends. M.: “Chemistry and Life”, 1999. - P. 102.
  3. Works for musical theater: operas, musicals
  4. The author of Deniska's Stories, composer Maxim Basok, celebrates his anniversary
  5. Gala evening dedicated to the exhibition “Denis Korablev and others”
  6. “Denis Korablev and others” To the 100th anniversary of Victor Dragunsky

Links

  • Website dedicated to stories about Denis Korablev
  • A selection of illustrations for stories by various artists
  • Deniska's stories - He's alive... (excerpt from the musical by M. A. Bask, mp3)

Deniskin's stories, Deniskin's stories audio, Deniskin's stories audiobook, Deniskin's stories dragoon, Deniskin's stories download free, Deniskin's stories listen online, Deniskin's stories watch, Deniskin's stories film, Deniskin's stories films 2017, Deniskin's stories read

Deniska's stories Information About

The main character of Victor Dragunsky's story “The First Day” is a boy named Denis. An important event is expected in his life - Denis will go to school for the first time. On this occasion, on the first of September, he woke up very early, when it was still dark. He had to wait until his mother stood up and ironed his school uniform. Seeing Deniska in uniform, dad said that he looked like a general.

The school had many children holding flowers in their hands. And Denis’s backpack contained brand new school supplies. In the first lesson, the hero of the story learned many new words: chalk, blackboard, desk, class, teacher. He also learned that the teacher’s name was Ksenia Alekseevna.

During the second lesson, a real writer came to visit the first-graders and read his stories to them. And Denis, in response, read a short poem to the writer, which he composed right there in class.

After classes, Denis was met by his mother. She gave him a red ball. The ball twitched in his hand and tried to fly into the sky. And Denis released him. And at home, for the first time in his life, he sat down to do his homework. Denis tried so hard that he even stuck out his tongue from zeal.

Then he played in the yard until his mother called him for dinner. And after dinner Deniska began to go to bed. Dad asked him why he went to bed so early, and Denis replied that he wanted tomorrow to come quickly so he could go to school again.

As he fell asleep, he thought that he would soon learn the letters, and then he would be able to read all the signs on the stores, despite his young age. And then dad will call him an educated man.

This is the summary of the story.

The main idea of ​​Dragunsky’s story “The First Day” is that one should approach one’s studies responsibly, as did the hero of the story, who woke up in the dark on September 1st and went to bed early in the evening so that he could go to school again in the morning.

Dragunsky's story “The First Day” teaches you to be patient and diligent. When Denis was doing his first homework in his life, he realized that he had not done it very well and therefore began to do it again.

In the story, I liked the main character, the boy Denis, who understands that studying at school is a very important part of a person’s life.

What proverbs fit Dragunsky’s story “The First Day”?

Learning to read and write is always useful.
The pen writes, but the mind leads.
Without effort there is no success.


Stories about Denis have been translated into many languages ​​of the world and even into Japanese. Victor Dragunsky wrote a sincere and cheerful preface to the Japanese collection: “I was born quite a long time ago and quite far away, one might even say, in another part of the world. As a child, I loved to fight and never let myself get hurt. As you understand, my hero was Tom Sawyer, and never, under any circumstances, Sid. I'm sure you share my point of view. I studied at school, frankly speaking, not well... From early childhood I fell deeply in love with the circus and still love it. I was a clown. I wrote a story about the circus, “Today and Everyday.” Besides the circus I really love little children. I write about children and for children. This is my whole life, its meaning.”


“Deniska’s stories” are funny stories with a sensitive vision of important details; they are instructive, but without moralizing. If you haven’t read them yet, start with the most touching stories, and the best story for this role is “Childhood Friend.”

Deniska's stories: Childhood friend

When I was six or six and a half years old, I had absolutely no idea who I would ultimately be in this world. I really liked all the people around me and all the work too. At that time there was a terrible confusion in my head, I was kind of confused and could not really decide what I should take on.

Either I wanted to be an astronomer, so I could stay awake at night and watch distant stars through a telescope, and then I dreamed of becoming a sea captain, so that I could stand with my legs apart on the captain’s bridge, and visit distant Singapore, and buy a funny monkey there. Otherwise, I was dying to turn into a subway driver or a station master and walk around in a red cap and shout in a thick voice:

- Go-o-tov!

Or my appetite was whetted to learn to become an artist who paints white stripes on the street asphalt for speeding cars. Otherwise it seemed to me that it would be nice to become a brave traveler like Alain Bombard and sail across all the oceans on a fragile shuttle, eating only raw fish. True, this Bomber lost twenty-five kilograms after his trip, and I only weighed twenty-six, so it turned out that if I also swam like him, then I would have absolutely no way to lose weight, I would weigh only one thing at the end of the trip kilo. What if I don’t catch a fish or two somewhere and lose a little more weight? Then I’ll probably just melt into the air like smoke, that’s all.

When I calculated all this, I decided to abandon this idea, and the next day I was already impatient to become a boxer, because I saw the European Boxing Championship on TV. The way they threshed each other was simply terrifying! And then they showed them training, and here they were hitting a heavy leather “bag” - such an oblong heavy ball, you need to hit it with all your might, hit it as hard as you can in order to develop the power of hitting. And I looked at all this so much that I also decided to become the strongest person in the yard so that I could beat everyone, if anything happened.

I told dad:

- Dad, buy me a pear!

- It’s January now, there are no pears. Eat a carrot for now.

I laughed:

- No, dad, not like that! Not an edible pear! Please buy me an ordinary leather punching bag!

- And why do you need it? - said dad.

“Practice,” I said. - Because I will be a boxer and I will beat everyone. Buy it, huh?

- How much does such a pear cost? – Dad asked.

“It’s just nothing,” I said. - Ten or fifty rubles.

“You’re crazy, brother,” said dad. - Get by somehow without a pear. Nothing will happen to you. And he got dressed and went to work. And I was offended by him because he refused me so laughingly. And my mother immediately noticed that I was offended, and immediately said:

- Wait a minute, I think I came up with something. Come on, come on, wait a minute.

And she bent down and pulled out a large wicker basket from under the sofa; It contained old toys that I no longer played with. Because I had already grown up and in the fall I was supposed to buy a school uniform and a cap with a shiny visor.

Mom started digging in this basket, and while she was digging, I saw my old tram without wheels and on a string, a plastic pipe, a dented top, one arrow with a rubber blotch, a piece of sail from a boat, and several rattles, and many other toy items. scrap. And suddenly mom took out a healthy teddy bear from the bottom of the basket.

She threw it on my sofa and said:

- Here. This is the same one that Aunt Mila gave you. You were two years old then. Good Mishka, excellent. Look how tight it is! What a fat belly! Look how it rolled out! Why not a pear? Better! And you don't need to buy! Let's train as much as you like! Get started!

And then they called her to the phone, and she went out into the corridor.

And I was very happy that my mother came up with such a great idea. And I made Mishka comfortable on the sofa, so that it would be easier for me to train against him and develop the power of the blow.

He sat in front of me, so chocolate-colored, but very shabby, and he had different eyes: one of his own - yellow glass, and the other large white - from a button from a pillowcase; I didn't even remember when he appeared. But it didn’t matter, because Mishka looked at me quite cheerfully with his different eyes, and he spread his legs and stuck his stomach out towards me, and raised both hands up, as if he was joking that he was already giving up in advance...

And I looked at him like that and suddenly remembered how a long time ago I never parted with this Mishka for a minute, dragged him everywhere with me, and nursed him, and sat him at the table next to me for dinner, and fed him with a spoon semolina porridge, and he got such a funny little face when I smeared him with something, even the same porridge or jam, then he got such a funny, cute little face, just like he was alive, and I put him to bed with me, and rocked him to sleep , like a little brother, and whispered different tales to him right into his velvety hard ears, and I loved him then, loved him with all my soul, I would give my life for him then. And here he is now sitting on the sofa, my former best friend, a true childhood friend. Here he sits, laughing with different eyes, and I want to train the strength of my blow against him...

“What are you talking about,” said mom, she had already returned from the corridor. - What happened to you?

But I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I was silent for a long time and turned away from my mother so that she wouldn’t guess by her voice or lips what was wrong with me, and I lifted my head to the ceiling so that the tears would roll back, and then, when I had strengthened myself a little , I said:

-What are you talking about, mom? Nothing wrong with me... I just changed my mind. I'll just never be a boxer.

About the author.
Victor Dragunsky lived a long, interesting life. But not everyone knows that before becoming a writer, in his early youth he changed many occupations and at the same time succeeded in each: turner, saddler, actor, director, author of small plays, “red-haired” clown in the arena of the Moscow circus. He treated every job he did in his life with equal respect. He loved children very much, and the children were drawn to him, feeling in him a kind elder comrade and friend. When he was an actor, he enjoyed performing for children, usually as Santa Claus during the winter holidays. He was a kind, cheerful person, but irreconcilable with injustice and lies.


Victor Yuzefovich Dragunsky is a man of amazing destiny. He was born on November 30, 1913 in New York into a family of emigrants from Russia. However, already in 1914, shortly before the start of the First World War, the family returned and settled in Gomel, where Dragunsky spent his childhood. Together with his stepfather, actor Mikhail Rubin, at the age of ten he began performing on provincial stages: he recited couplets, tap danced and parodied. In his youth he worked as a boatman on the Moscow River, as a turner at a factory, and as a saddler in a sports workshop. By a lucky coincidence, in 1930, Viktor Dragunsky entered the literary and theater workshop of Alexei Dikiy, and here an interesting stage of his biography began - acting. In 1935 he began performing as an actor. Since 1940, he has been publishing feuilletons and humorous stories, writing songs, sideshows, clowning, skits for the stage and circus. During the Great Patriotic War, Dragunsky was in the militia, and then performed at the fronts with concert brigades. For a little over a year he worked in the circus as a clown, but returned to the theater again. At the Film Actor's Theater he organized a literary and theatrical parody ensemble, uniting young, underemployed actors into the amateur troupe "Blue Bird". Dragunsky played several roles in films. He was almost fifty when his books for children with strange titles began to appear: “Twenty Years Under the Bed,” “No Bang, No Bang,” “The Professor of Sour Cabbage Cabbage”... Deniskin’s first Dragunsky stories instantly became popular. Books from this series were printed in large editions.

However, Viktor Dragunsky wrote prose works for adults as well. In 1961, the story “He Fell on the Grass” about the very first days of the war was published. In 1964, the story “Today and Everyday” was published, telling about the life of circus workers. The main character of this book is a clown.

Viktor Yuzefovich Dragunsky died in Moscow on May 6, 1972. The Dragunsky writing dynasty was continued by his son Denis, who became a quite successful writer, and his daughter Ksenia Dragunskaya, a brilliant children's writer and playwright.

Dragunsky’s close friend, children’s poet Yakov Akim, once said: “A young man needs all the vitamins, including all the moral vitamins. Vitamins of kindness, nobility, honesty, decency, courage. Viktor Dragunsky generously and talentedly gave all these vitamins to our children.”

Did you like the article? Share with your friends!