This book is specially dedicated to children in the elementary schools between the ages of nine and thirteen, and it could be called 'The Story of a School Year, Written by a Third Year Pupil in an Italian Council School'. When I say written by a third-year pupil, I do not mean to say that he himself wrote it exactly as printed. He wrote down little by little in an exercise book as well as he could what he had seen, heard and thought in and out of school; and at the end of the year, using those notes, his father wrote these pages, taking care not to change the thoughts and, as far as possible, using his son's own words. The boy then reread the manuscript four years later when he was already at the grammar school and made his own additions using memories still fresh of people and things. Now read this book, children. I hope that you will be pleased with it and profit from it.