The Adventures of Guguță

3 hrs. 52 min.

Children's Books, Audio Fairy Tales & Poems

Language Russian

Author Spiridon Vangheli

Narrator Leonid Kareev

Description

How can you retell a book about Gugutse other than in general terms—“fun stories about the adventures of a little boy”? How can you retell a miracle? And it begins already with meeting the hero:

“When Gugutse didn’t even manage to put on his big winter hat, winter was already right there. Evidently she liked the boy and his hat.

Snowflakes flew in from all four ends of the world to see Gugutse. And they stuck to him from head to toe.

He stands round and white, like a snowman. Only a little wisp of smoke curls up from under the hat.

— Oh my goodness! — the snowflakes were surprised. — Is he really warming himself, making fire under his hat? What a weird fellow! Put on such a hat—and the cold itself will jump out from under it!

They didn’t know that when Gugutse breathes, steam comes out of his mouth…”

Gugutse’s character is quite definite, even though this is about a very small boy—a preschooler. He’s such a proper little man: kind, responsive, observant, hardworking. He’s natural and steady, like nature itself. And he’s also unbelievably active, like all the heroes of Vangeli. “I had an active childhood, and I want to pull other children into the whirlpool of life, too,” says the writer. Gugutse is open to communication and ready to help everyone who needs it.
I don’t think the writer wanted to show that his hero is some kind of angel—he wouldn’t call him “a clean sheet,” on which life will later write different stories. Of course, Gugutse embodies the fairy-tale image of childhood, but he is by no means idealized. Gugutse is a normal, though very talented, child (and aren’t all children talented?), he is simply GOOD.