Mikhail Zoshchenko is known primarily as an "adult" satirical writer. But he also wrote several dozen wonderful stories for children.
Zoshchenko valued his young reader and managed to find a remarkably apt tone for speaking with children. His stories always carry a moral, an admonition, a lesson. He reflects on what is good and what is bad, yet without casting himself as a mentor or a strict teacher of life. The didactic quality is softened by gentle humor, and the moralizing by a confiding intonation.