The Tales Of Chekhov Volume 12: The Cook's Wedding And Other Stories Book

All but one of these stories feature and are about children or animals. They don't have a "story" structure--they're more the sort of slice of life that came into style in the first third of the 20th century, many years after Chekhov put them together.

They show Chekhov's immense sympathy for the downtrodden, the off-the-gird, the under-the-radar. His kids look at the world in innocent confusion; his animals think not like humans (or like animals) but like isolated points of wonder. Psychologically, the child tales would hardly pass, but as examinations of the underlife that exists everywhere, largely unacknowledged, they are superb snippets.