The Walrus, Teacher, and Poet. Short Stories for Lovers of Big Journeys

Arthur Givargizov has long been known as an author of children's poems (collections "Once I Was Flying from the Rowan Tree", "Generals", "When There's No Time", "Cosmonauts" and others), stories, and plays. By education, Arthur is a professional musician, but reading his poems, you immediately understand that he is a real poet, a troublemaker, and a magician who understands children like no one else, and he is always on the same side as his readers. His new book — "The Walrus, Teacher, and Poet" — contains two stories about sixty-year-old Mikhail Mikhailovich from the village of Pesochnoe on the shores of the Northern Arctic Ocean. But don’t be scared! It's not about a boring retiree at all. Misha — an elderly man, but very happily childlike, and everyone calls him simply by name, "because being little, unserious, and wise is all the same thing".

In Pesochnoe, there is always room for ordinary miracles, and the happiness of its residents lies in simple and understandable things. It is a small cozy world, cut off from civilization. In it live Misha himself along with a bear and a thawed mammoth, a troublemaker named Snegirev, and Grandma Olya. And also, once, police officers arriving from St. Petersburg settled in Olya's shed, who sometimes become philosophers and sometimes turn into an orchestra. In Pesochnoe, they gather mushrooms, measure the temperature of the Northern Arctic Ocean, and play chess. The small chapters can be read one after another or in a random order. Each of them is like a short parable: sometimes a little sad, sometimes slightly philosophical, sometimes unbelievably funny. Givargizov's stories are childishly naive, next to the real, something fantastic always lives. In the second part of the book, this fantastic breaks through to the surface. After all, Misha sets off to mysterious hot India. The wooden houses of Pesochnoe are replaced by Indian temples, and the journey turns into a bright kaleidoscope: exotic dishes, encounters with yogis, elephant rides, movie shoots... But even in a fairy-tale land, it's not worth lingering when there is a place and someone to return to. And Misha goes home, where all of Pesochnoe greets him like a great traveler.

For middle school age.