A summary of "Children’s Book" by Boris Akunin

This book is a fantasy novel for the younger generation, written by Boris Akunin in 2005. The young descendant of a renowned detective travels through time, saving the world from a mystical artifact imbued with destructive energy. The author blends historical realities with adventure intrigue.

This novel opens the author’s "Genres" series. This cycle also includes "Spy Novel," "Fantasy," "Quest," and "Children’s Book for Girls." The work described here is number one in the series.

Events of September 29

Sixth-grader Erast Fandorin studies at a Moscow lyceum with a strong mathematical focus. His peers call him Lastik (Lastik). He endures ridicule for his short stature and shiny metal braces. His father dreams of his son growing up like his great-grandfather, whose portrait hangs in his office. One morning, on his way to class, Lastik encounters a series of incredible anomalies. First, he hears a mystical call from the locked basement of an old house on Solyanka Street. Then, through cunning, he outwits an aggressive German shepherd tethered in a gateway. Later, Lastik gives his last money to a supposed homeless man. To top it all off, he wins a huge stereo for free from street lottery scammers.

Because the radio suddenly turned up loud, the school principal expels Erast from class in disgrace. The upset boy returns home. There he finds his father in the company of a tall, strange foreigner.

History of the artifact

The foreigner’s name is Professor Van Dorn. The scientist declares that the morning’s events were tests of courage, generosity, intelligence, and luck. Erast passed all the tests with flying colors.

The professor recounts an ancient family history. At the end of the eleventh century, the crusader Theo von Dorn participated in the assault on Jerusalem. On a bare hill, the warrior unearthed the Apple of Paradise. It is a diamond shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. The mineral weighs almost thirteen grams. The stone carries a charge of absolute evil. Any harsh physical impact on the diamond provokes world wars and monstrous plagues across the planet. The artifact must be found and neutralized. To this end, the scientist has created a special, top-secret device — a transmutation gun.

Van Dorn reveals to Erast the existence of portals to other eras. One such passage is hidden right in the basement of the house on Solyanka Street. The boy is tasked with penetrating into the early twentieth century. He must find his great-grandfather, the great detective, and give him instructions on how to steal the diamond.

Failure in the last century

Erast dons the uniform of a high school student who specializes in realism. The professor gives him a gold coin and a unique portable computer disguised as a geometry textbook. The device can translate foreign languages, display maps, and locate portals. Through the basement, Erast enters the summer of 1914.

The letter for his great-grandfather disappears immediately. It’s stolen by a young pickpocket from Khitrov, nicknamed "Rooster." Erast finds the apartment he needs on Sverchkov Lane. Detective Mas’s loyal servant delivers the sad news: the owner is away on business for two whole weeks. There’s no time to wait.

Pursuing a pickpocket, Lastik sneaks backstage at a circus tent. Rooster works as an assistant to the illusionist Diabolo Diabolini. Erast quickly deciphers the magician’s secrets: a hidden breathing tube in an aquarium and a fireproof glass cylinder inside a flaming cube. The magician notices Erast. Using powerful hypnosis, he forces the boy to become his new assistant in place of the escaped Rooster. Diabolini plans to steal the Apple of Paradise himself. The treasure is kept by General Brianchaninov, who brought it back from the Chinese campaign.

During a seance at the general’s mansion, Erast steals the stone to save the world. He is intercepted by the magician’s accomplice, Yvette. The criminals take refuge in a cheap hotel. Diabolini brings special tools and prepares to cut the mineral. Erast tries to throw the diamond out the window but fails. He is locked in a massive closet. The magician leaves to get a new cutter. Erast tricks Yvette into opening the door. He snatches the Apple of Paradise and climbs down tied sheets into the courtyard.

Fleeing a furious pursuit, the boy runs into an old cemetery. Using his computer screen as a guide, he jumps into the nearest time hole.

Adventures in the Time of Troubles

The portal transports Erast to April 1605. He awakens at the bottom of a deep grave. Two robbers, Mitsha and Klyuv, drag him to the surface. They bring the body to Prince Vasily Shuisky. The boyar’s servant, Ondreika Sharapudin, cold-bloodedly poisons the mercenaries. Shuisky plans to pass off the dead boy as the miraculously preserved relics of Tsarevich Dmitry of Uglich. The goal of the boyar conspiracy is to overthrow Tsar Boris Godunov.

Ondrejka gives Lastik a fake wart. Boris Godunov secretly arrives at Shuisky’s house. The Tsar repents his sins and weeps bitterly over the body of the murdered child. Lastik sneezes loudly from the tickling. The astonished Tsar believes he is seeing a living angel. Godunov delivers a speech about passing the throne to his son Feodor and immediately dies of a stroke.

Shuisky realizes the boy is alive. The cunning boyar hides Lastik in a secret room. He calls his captive the radiant angel Erastil. The boy meets the prince’s young daughter, Solomonia. The girl quickly deduces the guest’s earthly origins but becomes genuinely attached to him. Shuisky takes the miracle computer from Erast. Lastik is forced to impersonate a saint day after day. He heals sick townspeople on the porch, using a German tongue twister as a spell. A parrot purchased from a Persian merchant imitates the voice of a modern radio announcer.

Soon, the tsar’s army defects to False Dmitry I. The young Tsar Feodor Godunov is killed. Boyar Shuisky transports Lastik in a dog crate to the new ruler. He hopes to pass the boy off as the dangerous impostor and thereby save his own life.

Meeting with a fellow countryman

In a camp tent, Lastik discovers a shocking truth. The False Dmitry is Yurka Otrepyev. The young pioneer fell into the past from 1967, getting lost in the Kyiv caves. Finding himself in a monastery, he became a monk and then successfully passed himself off as the surviving prince thanks to his birthmark. Having ascended the throne, Yurka dreams of building socialism in Russia. He wants to abolish serfdom, establish fair courts, and open European universities. He achieved his military victories using homemade gliders equipped with smoke bombs.

Yurka is sincerely in love with the Polish beauty Marina Mniszech. Soon they have a lavish wedding in the Assumption Cathedral. Marina’s court astrologer, the Englishman Edward Kelly, turns out to be an alchemist. He notices the Apple of Paradise on Erast’s neck. The doctor covets the artifact to create the Philosopher’s Stone using molten mercury. Erast flatly refuses to hand over the mineral.

The Poles are behaving extremely provocatively in Moscow. A violent popular uprising is brewing. The cunning Shuisky is organizing a conspiracy of disgruntled boyars.

That night, Solomonia sneaks up to Lastik and warns him of the rebellion. The boy rushes to the Kremlin. Yurka, along with his loyal commander Basmanov, fights off the rebels on the palace stairs. Marina outsmarts the courageous defenders. Saving her life, she treacherously shoots the commander in the back of the head with a pistol. The Tsarina herself opens the heavy iron gates to the enraged boyars.

Realizing his fellow pioneer can’t be saved, Lastik returns to Shuisky’s yard. He must reclaim the diamond from Dr. Kelly. The Englishman has already immersed the artifact in boiling mercury on a hot frying pan. Lastik threatens the alchemist with Basmanov’s pistol and retrieves his computer.

Ondrejka Sharafudin breaks down the door. Dr. Kelly picks up a pistol and shoots Erast. The lead bullet lodges in the sturdy casing of the smart book. The conspirators kill Kelly with shots through the broken door.

The red-hot diamond burns through Eraser’s clothes. The boy kicks the artifact into a dark corner under the bench. He instructs his faithful Solomonia to hide the mineral away from evil spirits. Fighting off Sharapudin, Erast jumps out the window. He climbs a log structure and plunges into a chrono-hole at the bottom of an old well.

Glass Zone

Eraser emerges from a concrete shaft and finds himself in Moscow. The city is completely deserted. The trees are bare, the cars on the streets are empty. There’s not a single living soul anywhere. A huge flying machine, resembling a vacuum cleaner, descends from the sky. It’s piloted by a genetic hybrid named Magdaichiro Yamadajenkins.

An asexual being reveals horrifying facts. Humanity perished in a global nuclear war. Fewer than a thousand scientists remain alive. They have frozen time on May 20th, covered their ruined cities with transparent domes, and are living forever. The scientists are deprived of normal emotions, feeding on colored jelly and amusing themselves by watching moving geometric shapes on a large screen.

Magdaichiro Yamadajenkins persuades Erast to stay in the ideal future. The boy flatly refuses and asks to be returned home. Using a built-in chronoscope, the hybrid sends Erast back to the morning of the same day that began the fantastical journey.

The boy finds himself in Red Square. Reaching his courtyard, he hides in a gateway. He sees his own double disappearing into a time portal. After waiting for his double to leave, Eraser tells Professor Van Dorn about the loss of the Paradise Apple. The boy weeps bitterly over the destruction of humanity. The scientist reassures the young hero: he has a few years to rectify the situation. The professor encourages the boy: "To be continued."