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excerpt Even though he would not have admitted it for anything in the world (he was a big boy now!), Gelu had not lost his taste for play. Before his indignant conscience, he held the one guilty to be Jack Barbecan, who had tapped on his door that morning: Gelu, let's

excerpt A NIGHT OF WAKING After the dinner party we go out into the hospital courtyard. Dusk is descending. A strong smell of carbolic acid tickles our nostrils. The boys are gathering round me. I tell them: Look. Let's all go to the cemetery. What should we do there

Gopo's Little Man (see Short History - click on Scurta istorie to see movie) I have been studying the Gopo archive belonging to the National Film Archive for some years, and now the first volume goes to print. It contains only a part of the legacy left by the film genius,

Between September 15 and June 15, every child's life was hijacked by school. School was the children's only officially-sanctioned pursuit. Their only obligation. None of us got any thrill out of getting up early, eyes heavy with sleep, and trudging all the way

excerpt  II Ever since the day I came back here, to our old little borough, I have hardly had one idle moment. I scoured all the familiar haunts that still brought to mind the childhood memories – the bright memories of a long gone childhood. I saw, on the banks of

In 1964, Creangă's memories were made into a movie (click here to see preview) by Elisabeta Bostan (b. 1931), whose filmography extending back to 1956, includes the Naica series (Naica and the Stork, Naica and the Squirrel, Naica Leaves for Bucharest), another film

Thou shalt not lie! A lie might get you lunch, but not supper. And there's no honesty in a liar. . . There lived once a little boy, Ionica by his name, who was always loath to help his parents. He didn't like it and that's that. Whenever his father said to

It has been five years since a wolf lodged in the quiet building of the Natural Science Museum of our school. And because it was too big to fit on the shelves of the glass cases among the owls and hares, it was placed on a small table in the middle of the museum. It was

excerpt NERO The piano Alfred had found was not brand new but it was, without the shadow of a doubt, the right one for Spartacus the tomcat's room. The one-eyed cat could only be grateful for such a find. He had now recovered his senses and was giving performances

Today, under the dead leaves I foundThe yellow spiralled shell of a snail,Light and empty and very frail,That someone abandoned on the ground.  A jelly-bodied snailHas wandered summer-long around the garden,And all he had as wardenWas this humble shell,So thin and so much

excerptONE-EYE-SHORTOnce upon a time there was a blond pirate who had one blue eye, while the other was covered with black cloth on purpose. Because the first ship had been taken over by sparrows, the second was on the point of sharing its fate. The ship One-Eye-Short worked

The sea is for the little ones, not just for the little ones' parents and grandparents. After all, such parents at both ends do not know how to play, they say; in the sand, where they stand and you sit, on the beach, where you are so skilled with your colorful kit that's