Forty years ago I read the manuscript of Andrei Nekrasov's story The Adventures of Captain Wrungel. This was my introduction to the intrepid captain, his unpredictable companions Lom and Fooks and their sailing boat Rage on which they undertook a round-the-world voyage.
   The world has changed a great deal since. The map of our planet is different now, Man has launched into outer space, atomic ice-breakers have crashed their way through to the North Pole. People have new joys and new cares. And a great many books have been written.
   But the little yacht Rage has not got lost in the ocean of children's literature. Outsailing many a literary vessel, Captain Wrungel still unerringly steers his course to the hearts of his young readers.
  For millions of boys and girls Captain Wrungel is as dear a hero as the boastful Baron Munchausen, the resourceful Robinson Crusoe and the mischievous Tom Sawyer.
   The first readers of The Adventures of Captain Wrungel are grandfathers and grandmothers now. The book's first edition has become a bibliographical rarity. But Captain Wrungel himself has no thought of retirement. He is still doing a very important job-that of entertaining his young readers and teaching them to weather hardships with a smile on their face.
   I am slightly envious of those who have opened this book for the first time in their life: they will leam a lot that is new, will come to terms with the elements and, at any rate, will have a great time.

Sergei Mikhalkov

Hero of Socialist Labour,

Lenin Prize winner