This book of readings is intended for students of Russian who have had at least one semester of study. It has a glossary and notes on facing pages and a complete glossary at the end.

The copiously illustrated text of this book is a copy of portions of the 1939 edition. The original book was intended as a children's encyclopedia embedded in a lively and engaging story. It is an excellent source of common nouns and verbs (particularly verbs of motion) that rarely occur in such abundance in an ordinary literary work. The language of the book reflects the style of conversational Russian; the sentences are short, free of participial constructions, and often elliptical.

Cassette recordings of the entire text are available from: Tape Sales, 009 Morrill Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.

"...a wonderfully innovative addition to the growing stock of intermediate Russian readers. It provides an engaging context for the introduction of common colloquial style without burdening the reader with superfluous material and lengthy grammatical explanations. ...the editors must be applauded for their development of this work into a valuable and enjoyable instructional tool." (SEEJ)

"...may be considered a useful supplement to encourage beginning students to start reading. The task will be much easier because the vocabulary notes provided are quite helpful and the end glossary complete." (MLJ)