Like “The Cook’s Wedding” and several other Chekhov stories, this tale paints the world through children’s eyes.
There is no narrative to speak of in “Children.” It is more of an exercise in imagining the world as children might see it.
The setup: A group of children–five brothers and sisters, plus the cook’s son–are playing cards and awaiting their parents’ return from an evening out.
They play cards; they bicker. They observe their world, each in their own way, relative to their age. Then they fall asleep.
There’s really nothing more to this story. The blandness of the title hints at the blandness of the tale. It ends with the children fading off to sleep, just as a reader might reasonably do thanks to this soporific piece of writing.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
A somewhat similar story to this one is “Grisha,” another bland one told through the eyes of a child whose various caretakers allow him to overindulge.
A Chekhov Circus 