Enrico Bottini is a student.
He writes a diary.
The teacher of Enrico writes stories, too.
In the diary there are nine stories.
One story for each month of the school year.
OCTOBER
Some acrobats buy the son of farmers.
They travel across Europe.
The boy is sad and escapes.
Some foreign men give him some money.
The boy hears them talking badly about Italy.
He decides to give back the money.
NOVEMBER
A boy acts as a guard at the top of a tree.
He warns the Italian soldiers of the arrival of Austrian soldiers.
They shoot at the tree.
The Austrian soldiers shot in his chest.
He falls and dies.
DECEMBER
Giulio comes from a very poor family.
The father wants him to study and have a good job.
To get more money, the father works as a copier at the night.
When father goes to sleep, Giulio decides to continue his work.
Giulio is not a good student as before.
The father is angry.
One night he finds Giulio at work and apologises to him.
JANUARY
During the War of Independence, a group of Italian soldiers is surrounded in a farmhouse by the Austrians.
A small drummer boy escapes through the window.
He needs to inform a group of Italians to get help.
The Austrians see the drummer boy and start shooting.
The boy continues to run.
Later the drummer boy is in the hospital.
He is alive, but he loses one leg.
FEBRUARY
Ciccillo goes to Naples. His father is in the hospital.
He calls his father “Tata”.
The nurses bring him to the room of a dying man. The child stays by his side and cries.
Ciccillo hears a man’s voice.
He recognized it as his father’s.
He is healthy and ready to go home.
The nurses got Ciccillo to the wrong person.
Ciccillo is now happy.
He decides to stay one more night with the dying man.
MARCH
Ferruccio has bad friends. His grandmother is angry with him.
The rest of the family is away. They are alone at home.
Suddenly two thieves break into the house and steal the money.
One of the two thieves loses the mask.
The thief is about to kill the grandmother, but Ferruccio stands in front of her and dies.
APRIL
A boy saves the life of another boy who is drowning in the river.
The mayor of the town decides to give him a medal.
The ceremony is big, with a lot of people.
There is also the saved boy: he hugs the boy gratefully.
MAY
Marco decides to visit his mother in Argentina.
She is very ill, but she refuses to be operated.
The travel is really long and full of difficult situations.
Marco does not give up.
He finds his mother.
She is so happy.
She decides to have the surgery and survives.
JUNE
Little Mario is an orphan.
He is traveling on a ship to Malta.
He meets a girl from Italy, Giuditta.
The two become friends.
A storm breaks the ship.
Mario and Giuditta are clinging to one of the masts.
A lifeboat arrives.
There is only one place.
Mario wants Giuditta to take it.
Mario knows that Giuditta has her parents waiting for her.
He remains on the mast and dies.