Childhood. Adolescence

It is very difficult to become better when you are twelve years old.

Nikolai Irtenyev either decides to start a new life or breaks his own rules the very next day. He keeps a diary, makes a list of his shortcomings, gives his last silver ruble to a beggar, falls in love with Sonya Valakhina, is ashamed of his thoughts, and endlessly tries to understand himself.

In the stories "Childhood" and "Adolescence," Leo Tolstoy tells not so much about events as about the inner life of a person. About that age when every word seems important, every mistake is irreparable, and a stranger's glance can make you happy or unhappy for an entire day.

Together with Nikolai, the reader will experience the death of his mother, friendship with kind Karl Ivanovich, first disappointments, first love, and the first serious questions about what kind of person one wants to become.