A little wonder, every day

Lem’s early reading and school years

Титульна AI-згенерована ілюстрація / AI-generated cover illustration. A fictional four-year-old reads a picture book in a 1920s Lwów home, evoking Lem’s memoir of early reading.

AI-generated generic classroom evoking Lem’s 1930s secondary-school years.

AI-generated close view of a child practicing writing, evoking Lem’s account of learning to write in his fourth year.

documentary portrait of Lem in 1966 with a mechanical toy and books, courtesy of his secretary Wojciech Zemek. Commons reproduces permission from the Lem estate; listed CC BY-SA 3.0/GFDL. Use CC BY-SA 3.0, attribution “Stanisław Lem / courtesy of Wojciech Zemek / CC BY-SA 3.0”; unedited. [Original page](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem.jpg); [license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

documentary photo by Mariusz Kubik, captured 30 October 2005. Commons lists CC BY-SA 3.0 and CC BY 2.5; use CC BY 2.5, attribution “Mariusz Kubik / CC BY 2.5”; unedited. [Original page](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stanislaw_Lem_by_Kubik.JPG); [license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/).

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Титульна AI-згенерована ілюстрація / AI-generated cover illustration. A fictional four-year-old reads a picture book in a 1920s Lwów home, evoking Lem’s memoir of early reading.

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In his memoir, Stanisław Lem wrote that he could read from the age of four and learned to write during his fourth year of life. In 1932, he began attending the Second State Gymnasium named after Karol Szajnocha in Lwów.