Chapter 13

Once again, I was completely alone and began to think about Kuzya. Where is my poor cat? I remembered his funny advice, his silly cat stories… Which made me even sadder. All alone in this strange land! I needed to find Kuzya soon.

Chapter 1

On the day that it all began, I was unlucky since the very morning. That day, we had five classes. And I was called upon in each and every one of them. And for every class, I managed to get an F. Five Fs in one day! Two of the Fs, I will admit, I probably got for not answering the teachers’ questions in the…

Chapter 12

A very fatigued cyclist rode down the road. He was barely alive, suffocating. Suddently, he fell off his bicycle. I rushed to pick it up but couldn’t do much else. He was wheezing and rolling his eyes.

“I’m dying, I’m dying on my job,” the cyclist whispered. “I cannot fulfill this…

Chapter 8

The ball rolled out of the gate and we ran after it. When I turned around, I saw that everyone was leaning out of the castle windows and waving at us. Even His Majesty the Verb. I waved back to them and rushed to catch up with Kuzya.

Chapter 3

One of the homework assignments was to memorize the grammatical rules for using vowels. Of course, I didn’t do this. It’s useless to repeat stuff that you don’t already know. The next assignment was to read about the water cycle in nature. I remembered Zoya Fillipovna and decided to skip this one as well.

Chapter 2

My mom greeted me with silence. But that didn’t relieve me at all. I knew that first, she would feed me and then…

It was impossible to hide my Fs. My mom told me a long time ago that she reads everything that I want to hide from her in my eyes, including what is written in my report…

Chapter 11

The cyclist rushed by again. He was no longer singing or stopping to drink. It was quite evident that he was absolutely exhausted and could barely stay on the bicycle.

Kuzya suddenly arched his back and hissed.

Translator’s note

Liya Geraskina’s fairy tale (В стране невыученных уроков) and its eponymous cartoon are well known by children and adults alike. For the first time, an English translation of this beloved classic is available to stir the minds of young readers across the globe.

Chapter 7

The little men brought out large iron brackets and placed them to my left and to my right.

“This is not good, master,” Kuzya remarked nervously and started to wave his tail in the air. He always did this when he was dissatisfied with something. “Can we escape from here?”

Chapter 6

We walked through a bunch of empty rooms and found ourselves in a huge hall. Here, the walls were covered in beautiful handwriting that described all of the different grammar rules. It seemed like our journey started off very well. I easily remembered the rules and opened the lock! If this was indicative of…

Dedication

To my beautiful daughters, Hazel and Violet, who always wanted to read the “Boy, ball, and the cat” book.

Now that you’re old enough to read it on your own, I’ve translated it for you from Russian, so that you can have an unforgettable adventure in this magical land whenever you…

Chapter 10

The sun was not visible, but it was still getting very hot. I felt thirsty again. But despite the forest on both sides of our path being green, we didn’t see a river anywhere.

We were walking and walking. Kuzya managed to tell me about a dozen stories about dogs, cats, and mice. It…

Chapter 15

“Explain to me,” Kuzya asked after a while, “how you managed to remember something that you didn’t know?”

“When my dad got a new telephone number at work, my mom couldn’t remember it. So, my dad told her: ‘But it’s so simple! The first three digits are the same as our home telephone…

Chapter 4

Once again, I was alone. I was amazed at how much I didn’t want to do my homework. Of course, had I had a strong will, I would simply sit down and finish it, in spite of myself and the fact that I didn’t want to do it. Katya must have a strong will. I’ll need to make peace with her and ask her about how she…

Chapter 5

Kuzya and I flew through the air with a ball in front of us. I did not dare look down — I was too afraid. In order to contain my fright, I stared directly at the ball. I’m not sure for how long we flew. The sun was shining brightly in the sky, and Kuzya and I were following the ball through the air, as if we…