Edmondo de Amicis - Heart: a Schoolboy's Journal

Little Enrico Bottini is a ten year-old third grade student in Italy who keeps a diary for one whole school year. It records the general problems, excitements, and successes any third grader might deal with, all explained from Enrico's point of view. Through the course of this one year, we watch Enrico learn and grow a little, and hopefully we can learn from his experiences, too.
Edmondo de Amici's 1886 book Cuore was an immediate huge success when it was published, and while school rooms have changed dramatically in the century and a half since the book was first published within Italy and elsewhere, the attraction of this book has hardly diminished, and it is still immensely popular. — Summary by Carolin