The Lion and the Puppy: And Other Stories for Children
he also knew how miserable the lives of the children in the towns were His heart ached at the sound of the factory whistles at dawn and dusk from the mill beyond the village He once visited that mill and wrote in his diary I visited a stocking mill and learned what the whistles mean At five o clock in the morning a boy takes his stand beside a machine and stays there till eight At eight he drinks tea and then stands till midday and at one he begins again and stands till four then he works through from half past four to eight in the evening Every day seven days a week That's what the whistles mean we hear in our beds He wondered how such children had time to live children whom whistles set in motion at five in the morning and stopped at eight in the evening When would they learn read books have time to play Tolstoy's school was the first in Russia for village children But when he came to seek school books that were easy to read and interesting he was disappointed What few children's books existed were dull and more likely to put out the spark of interest than kindle it So the great writer known throughout the world for his famous books sat down to write stories for children that were easy to read and interesting that would teach right from wrong good from bad Even though his great works took up much of his time and energy he always found time for the children The stories he wrote were not only for the village children around Clear Glades They were intended for all girls and boys who wish to open up their hearts to truth and beauty
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE The stories are taken from Tolstoy's Azbuka Primer which consisted of four Russian Reading Books four Slav Reading Books a section on teaching reading handwriting and arithmetic and guidance for teach ers Although the Primer was not published until 1872 it was based on notebooks Tolstoy had kept from his first teaching experience at his school for peasant children at Yasnaya Polyana Clear Glades from 1849 and at other schools he founded for peasant children in the Tula Province The stories vary widely some are based on Aesop's fables others on Russian and foreign folk tales some on nature studies and others on the work of children themselves As an example of the latter the Young Boy's Stories all come from the storytelling of peasant children whom Tolstoy encouraged to read and write in their own words What distinguishes all the stories in the Primer from children's sto ries current in Russian schools at that time is that they are largely free from the heavy moralistic homilies and religious preaching that Tolstoy abhorred Moreover they are written in a simple language style for a new audience as Tolstoy put it that has to be counted in many thousands even millions
The present versions are taken from Novaya azbuka New Primer and the four Russkie knigi dlya chteniya Russian Reading Books edited by Tolstoy for the 1875 edition They are contained in L N Tolstoy Sobranie sochineniy v 14 tomkakh tom desyaty Collected Works in 14 Vol umes vol 10 Moscow 1952
