The writer of all times The team “Starkids”,Rovnoe, Saratov region

Leo Kassil was born on June 27 (July 10), 1905 in Pokrovskaya Sloboda (now the city of Engels, Saratov region) in the family of a physician Abram G. Kassil and a music teacher and dentist Anna Josephovna Perelman. He studied at the gymnasium, after the Revolution transformed into a unified labor school, which he left in 1923.

Kassil collaborated with Pokrovskaya children's library reading room, which organized various clubs for the children of workers and produced a manuscript magazine, the main editor and artist of which was Kassil. Since 1923 he had lived in Moscow. In 1927 he graduated from the third course of the physics and mathematics faculty of Moscow State University. Since 1925 Kassil had begun studying literature. A year later he wrote his first story, which was printed in 1925 in the newspaper "Radio News". In his free time Kassil was fond of reading Russian classics.

In 1927 Kassil met with Vladimir Mayakovsky, whose talent he admired a lot and began to work in Mayakovsky’s magazine "New LEF". Here the excerpts from his first book "The Black Book" were printed. He received an offer to work in the magazine "Pioneer", where Mikhail Prishvin, Arkady Gaidar, and others were working at that time. Kassil became acquainted with S. Marshak, that meeting defined his whole future career as a children writer.

But he didn't leave journalism: for more than ten years (1928-1937) he had been an essayist, a columnist and a special correspondent of the newspaper "Izvestia", he traveled around the country and abroad, met interesting people, published materials in newspapers for adults and children. The major essays in this period were: (“Ice Commissioner” - about the "Chelyuskin" epic of O.Schmidt, "The Lift of the world ceiling" - about "USSR", a stratospheric balloon flight , "The Art of being surprised" - about the progress of the Soviet aviation, etc.), and essays for children: "Delicious factory" (1930), "Planetarium" (1931), "Marine-terrain" (1933).»(1933).

During World War II L. A. Kassil served as a war correspondent, spoke on the radio, in schools, military units, factories of Moscow and the Urals. In 1947-1948 he worked as chairman of the Commission on Children's Literature in Writers' Union. In 1947-1949 Kassil was the head of the workshop on children's literature in the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute.

L.A. Kassil’s prizes and awards - Third-degree Stalin Prize - for his novel "The Younger Son's Street " (co-written with M.L. Polyanovsky). - Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1955) - Order of the Red Star - Order of the Badge of Honor

In 1965 Kassil was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR. For many years he taught at the Gorky Literature Institute. Kassil died in Moscow on June 21, 1970. (From a heart attack, which occurred when he was watching the World Cup final match broadcast). He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

In the city of Engels there is Leo Kassil's house-museum and a street named after him. The monument to Leo Kassil is erected on Svoboda Square in the city of Engels.

The main legacy of L.A. Kassil L.A. Kassil is the inspirer and the main organizer of the festival of children books “Book’s Birthday Party”, the name of the event had also been given by L. Kassil. The first festival of children books "Book’s Birthday Party" was held on March 26, 1943 in Moscow. Kassil was assisted by the director of the publishing house "Detgiz" Ludmila Victorovna Dubrovina.

The active participants of the festival were S. Marshak S. Mikhalkov A. Barto M. Prishvin

At the same time it was decided to hold annually mass celebrations for children in libraries and schools, with the purpose of popularization of children books. The purpose of the festival is to attract children's interest to reading. On March 26, 2016 we'll celebrate the 73rd anniversary of the festival "Book's birthday party"