A little boy
goes to his father.
"What is good and what is bad?"
the little one asks.

The poem "What is good and what is bad?" by Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) illustrated by Victor Kirillov is the fifth book in the series "Little Readers - Great Writers" published by Papyros.
It is one of the fourteen children's poems written by the poet-symbol of Russian avant-garde, which generations of children in Russia grew up with. It was first published with illustrations by Alexei Laptev in 1930 and has been reissued repeatedly in the following decades. With clear language, clear meanings, and images - the translation by Monika Vaxevani from Russian preserves the dynamism of the original Russian - the great Mayakovsky speaks to young readers about what courage means, justice, how bad it is to hurt the weak, how important care and hard work are. He talks about fundamental concepts, in the language of stark contrasts that are familiar to young children. This edition, published in Moscow in 1971, is illustrated by Victor Kirillov, one of the leading illustrators of children's books in the Soviet period in Russia.