Last year, the long-standing tradition of celebrating Children's Day on June 1 was interrupted, and since then events traditionally associated with the long-awaited summer school holidays have been moved to the cloudy November 20 (" Then the idea of \u200b\u200bwriting about children's literature at the beginning of summer became irrelevant - which means that it is quite possible to return to the topic in the middle of it.

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Writing about children's literature is not easy, probably because there is too much of it, and most of it is of low quality.. After all, there is a common illusion that writing for children is easiest. No logical barriers, no restrictions in characters and plots. Why bother The main thing is to find a publisher who will take on the promotion of the next “magic book about poop” (this is not a joke: such a book actually exists on the Ukrainian market).

Fortunately, the situation with children's literature is well saved by the re-release of old proven classics. The eternal and always popular Winnie the Pooh, the slightly forgotten Kid and Carlson, the lesser-known but quite widely represented on the book market heroes of “The Wind in the Verbolosis” and, of course, Harry Potter, and among the Ukrainian children's classics, of course, the widely represented Vsevolod Nestaiko. The interest of readers and publishers in Nikolai Nosov and his Dunno continues unabated.

The series of adventures of the fairy-tale men Muffa, Polbotinka and Moss Beard, invented by the Estonian writer Eno Raud (1928–1996), also continues to be popular.. The most recent edition of one of the books - “Kitty Raid” - dates back to 2025.

And a year earlier, in 2024, the somewhat forgotten, but worthy of special attention, Lithuanian writer Vitaute Zilinskaite returned to the children's literature market. The Ranok publishing house published her short story “The Castle of Liars” (translated by Alexandra Petrauskaite), written back in 1968 and filmed as a cartoon in 1983. A seemingly simple fairy tale about why you shouldn’t lie is subject to deep interpretations on the Internet from time to time, since this children’s story has become a kind of simulacra manual for beginners.

The hero of the fairy tale, the boy Dinas, ends up in a castle where everything turns out to be an imitation: the luxurious furnishings of the palace are rude and unreliable props, the appetizing-looking dishes are inedible sawdust and marsh algae, and behind the fake curtains of candy wrappers, instead of a cheerful society with games and entertainment, slavery and boring and meaningless daily work like tying fallen leaves to branches are hidden..

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Such fairy tales “with meaning” are very typical of Vytaute Zilinskaite (1930–2024), who also wrote satire for adults, but became famous primarily as a children’s writer, whose works were translated from Lithuanian not only in the USSR, but also into English, German, Portuguese and other European languages. Lithuanian leaders have spoken out regarding the death of the 94-year-old author. According to President Gitanas Nauseda, Zilinskaite’s works have enriched the literature of the whole world: “Her deep and bold creativity will always be a source of inspiration and faith in the victory of good - in the human heart and in the world.”. “More than one generation has grown up reading her texts, and we still draw wisdom from them today,” adds Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte. It is gratifying that these works have been translated into Ukrainian. Thus, in 1983, the collection of fairy tales “Robot and Metelik” was published (translation by Olga Gradauskiene, illustrations by the famous Anatoly Vasilenko).

Despite the cute pictures and the note “for primary school age,” some of the fairy tales in the collection turned out to be by no means frivolous and not even very childish. For example, “Konik at the Sklyantsi” - now this fairy tale would be appreciated by animal rights activists. The sad story of a grasshopper caught in a glass, who lost his leg in the process of catching and pretends to the curious insect public that everything is fine with him, playing the violin. Or the story of two fish who escaped from an aquarium and died before reaching the ocean they dreamed of so much. Or a story about a young drake who dies after colliding with an airplane.

However, not all the fairy tales in the collection are so sad - but all are serious, sometimes on the verge of transitioning into the genre of fantasy, such as “The Laugh of the Clown,” where supposedly the eternally shot figurines in the shooting range come to life and take revenge on the boy who could not resist the temptation and spent the money given for food on bullets.

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Well, an indisputable masterpiece that simply needs to be republished is Zilinskaite’s fairy tale “The Road to Tandadriku”. In the Ukrainian translation of the same Olga Gradauskiene, the book was published in 1986, just two years after it was written. This is a full-fledged fairy tale-journey of more than 250 pages, written in the genre of “Toy Stories”. On New Year's Eve, toys that were supposed to be thrown into a landfill, thanks to the unscrupulous driver of a garbage truck, end up not in an ever-burning landfill, but in a forest clearing (since the driver wanted to not only shorten the path, but also cut down a beautiful Christmas tree for the holiday). After this, an amazing space journey begins to the planet Tandadrika, where toys live happily, they are not broken, but on the contrary, they are repaired and respected - on, obviously, it is no coincidence that a toy-real spaceship was found in the forest. Each of the toys ended up in the garbage truck due to their own injury, and therefore everyone wants to get to the wonderful planet and be renewed - the bald beauty Doll, the one-legged wise Penguin, and the one-armed Pilot.

During fantastic adventures, each hero also reveals hidden character flaws: Toad, with her organizational skills, has sycophancy and a penchant for career intrigue; the kind and brave one-eared Bunny has a tendency toward narcissism and authoritarian behavior.. And in “The Road to Tandadriku” Zhilinskaite does not change his style, making the ending of the tale unexpected and, one might say, solipsistic.

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Considering the second-hand rarity of a book published 40 years ago and its unexpected success among our unkind neighbors, who were honored to translate it only in 2014, with proper promotion, this deep, kind and instructive fairy tale could again please both children and adults who have a taste for quality children's literature. And now those who wish can listen to it on the YouTube channel “Tosya Reads Fairy Tales,” where commentators note with nostalgia that this was one of their favorite books.

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