Heart: A School-Boy's Journal - Edmondo De Amicis
Remember this, Enrique: when you find an old man, a woman with her child in her arms, someone who is on crutches, a man with his load on his back, a family dressed in mourning, give them respectfully; we must have special attentions with old age, misery, maternal love, illness, fatigue and death.
The extraordinary Italian novel Cuore (that's the Italian word for "Heart") was published in 1886, shortly after the Italian unification, and it soon achieved enormous popularity in Italy and abroad and became a classic of children's literature.
De Amicis aimed to teach moral and civic values, such as kindness, compassion, humility, respect, love for family and friends, solidarity between social classes, work ethic, and patriotism. He used moving plots and language: this book is a tear-fest if you are receptive to sentimentality, sometimes tears of sadness but often because of feel-good emotion. If you don't like sentiment, you are not going to like the book. It is utterly and unashamedly sentimental, hence its title, and also educational. The book is easy to mock now, being too emotional, preachy, utopic, and idealistic for modern sensitivities, portraying a world where there are clear right and wrong instead of moral complexity. Still, if you can see it in its context and don't mind that it's old-fashioned, you may find it very readable, moving, and charming.
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