The book of the famous Moscow teacher of literature, holder of the Pushkin medal, who worked for many years as the head of the department of Russian language and literature of the Education Center No. 1811, consists of literary and critical essays devoted to the works of "school" writers and poets - Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov, Turgenev, Gorky, Blok, Mayakovsky, Fadeev. A distinctive feature of these essays are new, original answers to "long-answered" questions. The author's convincing argumentation breaks the usual dogmas and ideas that have been introduced into the consciousness of schoolchildren for decades. Along the way, the master teacher shares his experience of educating students in independent, non-standard thinking. The essays included in the book were published in the journal Literature at School, the newspaper Literature, Teacher's Newspaper, Literaturnaya Gazeta, etc., and evoked a lively response from teachers and literary critics. In this edition, the most significant publications are brought together for the first time and, if necessary, finalized. For teachers of secondary educational institutions, methodologists, students of pedagogical universities, as well as for all those who are not indifferent to Russian classical literature.