Enrico Bottini is a student and decides to write a diary during the entire school year.
In the diary Enrico writes the adventures of his class and describes his classmates.
But in the diary, there are also nine stories written by Enrico’s teacher, Giulio Perboni. One story for each month of the school year.
OCTOBER
A company of acrobats buys the son of farmers. They start to travel across Europe.
The boy is sad. He decides to escape and return to Italy.
On the boat he meets some foreign men who give him some money because they feel compassion. They make some comments against Italy, so the boy decides to return the money to them.
NOVEMBER
A boy acts as a lookout at the top of a tree on behalf of the Lombard soldiers.
As he warns them of the arrival of a group of Austrian soldiers, they see him and start shooting at the tree.
The officer orders the boy to get off, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to continue monitoring the enemy’s movements.
Austrian soldiers shoot him in his chest, he falls and dies.
DECEMBER
Giulio is a schoolboy from a very poor family.
The father cares a lot about his scholastic path, as he is convinced that one day his son will be able to find a good job.
To support the family, the father works as a scribe by day and as a copier by night.
Giulio decides to continue his father’s work in secret when his father is asleep.
The family’s income increases, but Giulio no longer achieves the results he used to at school.
The father doesn’t know what is happening and scolds him.
One night he finds him at work and apologises to him.
JANUARY
During the First War of Independence (1848-1849) a group of Italian soldiers is surrounded in a farmhouse by the Austrians.
The commander manages to bring down a small drummer boy through a window. He should reach another group of Italians and raise the alarm.
However, the Austrians see the drummer boy and start shooting. The boy, despite being hit several times, continues to run and finally alerts the reinforcements.
The commander later finds the drummer boy in the hospital. He is alive, but one leg was amputated.
FEBRUARY
Ciccillo is sent by his mother to assist his father hospitalised in Naples.
Once Ciccillo arrives, he asks for information about his father.
He calls his father “Tata” and this creates a misunderstanding: he is accompanied to a room of a dying man.
Here the child assists the sick person and cries.
When he hears a man’s voice leaving the hospital, he recognises that it is his father’s voice. He is healthy and ready to go home.
Ciccillo is happy, but decides to stay one more night to assist the unknown dying man until the end.
MARCH
Ferruccio spent the day with a company that his grandmother doesn’t like. He comes back home in the evening and she scolds him.
The rest of the family is away until the next day and Ferruccio has to spend the evening with his grandmother.
Suddenly two thieves break into the house and steal the money.
At the moment of escape, one of the thieves loses the mask that covered his face and is thus recognised by the old woman: he is a local delinquent.
The thief is about to murder her, but Ferruccio stands in front of his grandmother and thus sacrifices his life for her.
APRIL
A little boy risks his life to save that of a boy his age who is drowning in the river.
Having learned of the gesture, the mayor of the town decides to reward him with a medal.
The ceremony is described in detail: in the center there is the little boy, the son of a shy and modest bricklayer.
After the speech, the Mayor pins the medal to the protagonist’s chest.
At that moment the boy who had been saved emerges from the audience and runs gratefully into the boy’s arms.
The crowd never ceases to cheer for the little boy.
MAY
Marco decides to leave Genoa and go look for his mother, who emigrated to Argentina to work for a family.
However, his mother is very ill and she seems hopeless because she refuses to undergo surgery.
Marco’s journey is long and full of adventures; Marco must cross Argentina on makeshift vehicles, following the hypothetical movements of the family his mother is with and gathering information along the way.
Without money, the boy does not give up, continues his journey on foot.
When he reaches the foot of the Andes, he finds his mother.
The woman upon seeing her son, finally decides to undergo the surgery and survives.
JUNE
Little Mario is on a voyage from Liverpool to Malta.
He encounters a girl during the journey; her name is Giuditta, and she is headed for Italy.
The two become friends and confide in each other their lives.
However, during the night, a storm breaks out, and the ship is disastrously shipwrecked.
Mario and Giuditta are clinging to one of the masts.
They are certain that they will die.
A lifeboat is thrown into the sea and Mario is offered the last place.
But the boy, knowing that Giuditta has her parents waiting for her, while he is an orphan, offers her his place.
As soon as the lifeboat takes off, the sea in a suction covers the ship, dragging Mario with it.