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All Those Images

Early Sunday afternoon, lying in bed with a large illustrated book of Ion Creangă stories, Memories of Childhood Days: the time stood still, waiting for me to turn over the pages, and I had all the time in the world. My father was sitting next to me reading too, but I was

Pioneer Contests

Wherever we are with our pioneers' unit, we can easily organize several contests, much loved by the pioneers. They can entail individual participation, pairs or teams of 3 or 4 pioneers of different ages, of both sexes. The playground should be even, clean and large

Pioneers Forever

Pioneer's honor if I lie to you! I don't know why, but I skipped school the day I was supposed to become an Oktombrel (a sort of junior pioneer), when I was in the first grade. You can imagine my suffering for not having participated in the ritual which made you

The Red Scarf

excerpt  Is that what it says? dashed Redhead at Tindei, grabbing him by the jacket's lapels. Does it say I've been to the vineyard? No. . . not that. . . you were just. . . mentioned as a. . . as an example! Tindei answered frightened, almost chocking and with

The Dreams Also Matter

excerpt  A train puffed away from the smoky railway station. A number of pioneers were waving goodbye from the window of one of the cars. Among them, there was a familiar face: big, blue eyes, and the hair, as dark as a nutshell. Goodbye, my darlings!Goodbye, comrade instructor!The

Why Spiridon Was Late

CHARACTERS: NEACSU SPIRIDON: sixth grade pupil, the head of the Pioneer Unit VICA: Neacsu Spiridon's classmate, pupil on dutyMARIANA: classmate of Vica and SpiridonA WOMAN: 30-35 years oldTHE TEACHER: 28-30 years oldPUPILS: Neacsu Spiridon's schoolmates The setting

Blue Evenings

excerpt VICA'S DIARY Vica had forgotten her diary under her pillow. Usually, she kept it in the drawer of her nightstand and in the evening, before turning off the light, she would write down her impressions of that day. Mica found it by chance. She was there tidying

The First Book, The Last Book

excerpts Dear Mother, I'd like to tell you something, and just because if I tried to talk to you about it, you wouldn't let me, I'm putting it in writing. You said to me, I quote: You go to school, do a good job there, finish well and we'll let you do

Novel Of The Nearsighted Adolescent

excerpt  VI. MONDAY, 8 TO 9, GERMAN When I was in the first grade, I flunked French, German and Romanian. I used to spend my afternoons barefoot on the pitch, sweating, short-sighted, playing oina. [1] I had become famous for the lightning rapidity with which I would catch

The Storm

The two students, Andrei Banica and Tudor Leru were in a hurry. That's why they had taken the shortcut. Leaving the highway that was taking a detour on the bank of the river Aries, they decided to climb up Vanatu, the mountain bordering on the river like a huge flat

The Life And Times Of Andrei Mihai Stan

Writing an oral history of a ten-year-old child may seem like a perfectly absurd enterprise any day of the week. The social experience of an individual of ten would not recommend an approach of this kind. With such a person it cannot be a matter of immediate memory. Hence

The Childhood Certificate

I once experienced a terrible fright. I woke up one day to discover a different world from what I knew it to be, more clear-cut, more plainly divided into complementary colors and opposite moral categories. It all looked like in a naive painting: clear and graphic. The only