Durova, Natalia. Timka the Little Hedgehog and Nevidimka the Little Mouse (Ezhonok Timka i myshonok Nevidimka). Illustrated by N. Charushin, 1971. In Russian.

Дурова, Наталья Юрьевна.
Ежонок Тимка и мышонок Невидимка / рисунки Н. Чарушина. Издание третье.
Москва : Издательство «Малыш», 1971. [12] страниц, включая обложку, иллюстрации ; 21,2 х 28 см.
В издательской обложке. Тираж 450 000 экземпляров. Для дошкольного возраста.
Состояние очень хорошее: обложка яркая, лёгкая потёртость краёв и уголков; блок чистый, страницы целые.
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Durova, Natalia Yuryevna. Timka the Little Hedgehog and Nevidimka the Little Mouse / illustrated by Nikita Charushin. Third edition.
Moscow : Malysh Publishing House, 1971. [12] pp. including wrappers, illustrated ; 21.2 x 28 cm.
Paper wrappers. Print run of 450,000 copies. For preschool age.
Condition very good: wrappers bright, light rubbing to edges and corners; text block clean and complete.

A third edition of a popular animal story for preschool readers by Natalia Durova (1934-2007), a circus animal trainer from the Durov dynasty who from 1978 directed the Durov Animal Theatre in Moscow. Her great-grandfather was the celebrated clown and animal trainer Vladimir Durov and her father the People's Artist Yuri Durov. Her children's stories draw on her own life among animals. This one tells of a hedgehog and a mouse who are raised together in the author's flat during a thunderstorm. The mouse, Nevidimka, vanishes whenever danger threatens, because he hides among the hedgehog's quills. The book is illustrated by Nikita Charushin (1934-2000), son of the famous animal artist Yevgeny Charushin and himself an Honoured Artist of the RSFSR, who trained at the Repin Institute in Leningrad and worked chiefly for children's publishers. His fluid brush and soft colour are shown here in the hedgehog on the cover, the pair of dogs and the studies of the animals within. The book belongs to the output of the Malysh publishing house, which specialised in books for the youngest readers. It was printed on offset paper at the Kalinin Polygraph Combine of Children's Literature. The title went through several printings, and this is the third, after a second edition of 1968, and was followed by a fourth in 1974. The enormous print run of 450,000 copies means the book is not rare as a title, but thin staple-bound children's booklets survive in good condition far less often than their print runs suggest. The book will interest collectors of Soviet children's illustration, admirers of the Charushin family, and collectors of animal stories and of the Durov circus dynasty.