An Accident

Dunno's Adventures #10

by Nikolay Nosov, Boris Kalaushin (Illustrator), Margaret Wettlin (Translator)

"Some people think that the higher you go, the warmer it is. That is not true. The higher you go the colder it is..."

Genres: Russia, Fiction, Childrens

16 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Nikolai(y) Nikolaevich Nosov (Russian: Николай Николаевич Носов,Николай Носов, Ukrainian: Микола Миколайович Носов; 23 November [O.S. 10 November] 1908, Kiev – 26 July 1976, Moscow) was a Soviet children's literature writer, the author of a number of humorous short stories, a school novel, and the popular trilogy of fairy tale novels about the adventures of Neznaika and his friends.

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 2 out of 5]

That insouciant anti-hero Dunno - Незнайка, meaning "don't know," in the original Russian - returns in this tenth installment of his adventures, which picks up just where the previous title, Up In the Clouds , left off. As the Mites, packed into the balloon and basket they constructed under the leadership of Doono (Dunno's opposite, so named because he does know things), continue to rise, the temperature around them grows ever colder. Finally, when the air in the balloon begins to cool, and the basket begin to sink, Doono instructs his companions to strap on their parachutes and jump with him, over the side. Predictably, not all goes as planned, and the balloon crash-lands, with Dunno still aboard...

The last of a ten picture-book bundle that I found at a rummage sale a few months ago - each of these titles seems to be a chapter from the original, longer novel about Незнайка - An Accident is not the final chapter in these ongoing adventures, although it will probably be the last that I read. I think it safe to say, given that Dunno eventually gets to the moon, in a subsequent novel (Незнайка на Луне), that he survives, and given my general indifference to his story, can't say I feel all that motivated to track down the other titles in this series. My conclusion, much as it was after reading the initial volume, The Mites of Flower Town , is that Nosov's work is too didactic for me, and that, while it may have been very entertaining in the original, its humor doesn't translate very well.

Still, I'm glad to have read these ten books, as I know that this character, and his adventures, are very well known amongst Russian speakers, and I am always interested in the development of children's literature in other parts of the world. Recommended primarily to those with a similar interest.

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once upon a time, in a town in fairyland, lived some people called the Mites. They were called the Mites because they were very tiny. The biggest of them was no bigger than a pine cone. Their town was very pretty. Around every house grew daisies, dandelions, and honeysuckle, and the streets were all named after flowers: Blue-bell Street, Daisy Lane, and Primrose Avenue. That is why the town was called Flower Town. It stood on the bank of a little brook. The Mites called it Cucumber River because so many cucumbers grew on its banks.

[Nilusha Abeysekara · Rating 2 out of 5]

වැඩ බැරි දාස ගැන කතා (10) - අනතුර

[Dinusha]

I think I need to read this Dunno's all the books again.