Only Eleven! or Love Affairs in Class 5D

For love—for the first love in their lives!—Egor and Nikita are ready for anything. Buy an enormous bouquet with the money they’ve saved, shower the only and unique girl with gifts, and by some miracle get a ticket to the concert she wants—please! But it turns out their feelings are for the very same girl—Angelina, the new student in their fifth “D.” So what about tickets and flowers? The question is this: which of them is ready to risk their life for the one they love, and what is more precious—love or male friendship? Doesn’t matter that they’re only eleven: their feelings are the real ones!

Listen to Victoria Lederman’s book, written in the form of alternating monologues by the three main characters. Angelina’s thoughts—she craves attention and deftly manipulates classmates—are followed by Egor’s heartfelt struggles, a kind-hearted hooligan. Then come the sincere feelings of “the nerd” Nikita—and then it goes around again and again. As a result, the listener is able to understand and feel each character “from the inside,” without identifying with just one of them. Watching the evolution of Egor, Nikita, and Angelina—listening to their thoughts and feelings—is an exciting and moving experience.

The love triangle is traditional for “adult” stories and rare for “children’s” plots, and it is experienced by its eleven-year-old participants with the same sharpness as adolescents in older age. Through the realities of today—supermarkets, social networks, computer games—come through recognizable features of children’s classics: boyish heroism, a sense of comradeship, and the formation and tempering of character. And this story about modern fifth-graders becomes, for a young listener, a bridge to their own inner growth and coming-of-age.