Marya Grigoryevna did not instil in me a great love of reading; rather she taught me a responsible attitude to a book. But I loved to listen when my papa read to me before sleep. In the times of my childhood they issued a series of little books in a soft cover. It was called “My first books.” There were Krylov’s fables “The Elephant and Moska,” and Grigorovich’s “The Gut-ta-percha Boy,” and Kornei Chukovsky’s “Tom Thumb,” and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.
Since I was still a preschooler and could independently read only the titles of books, I remember that the top heading “My first books” greatly puzzled me. I would look at the book then and think: “my first books??? Probably this is the first book of the one who WROTE it. Because for me this is not the first book!”
My childhood memory was so sticky that I would remember the text under the picture in the books papa read to me, and then I could “deliver” the whole text by heart. I don’t remember that my parents were greatly surprised by this. My poor papa! He read to me in my childhood, to my younger sister in her childhood, and he managed to read to my three-year-old son.
I remember, when we lived in a one-room “khrushchevka,” papa would read to my sister before sleep Pushkin’s “Tale of Tsar Saltan.” Possibly for my four-year-old sister this was a favourite fairy tale, because it was this fairy tale she “demanded” every evening. And only after the lines “And then the honest guests laid the young ones on a bed of ivory and left them alone.” (!!!) would my stubborn little sister calm down and settle to sleep.
And it’s time for me too, it’s late! (to be continued)