The Little Buffalo Herders (original title: Биволарчетата [Bivolarchetata]) is a Bulgarian kid's novel by Stoyan Daskalov.
The 1930s. In the village of Lyutibrod, in Northwestern Bulgaria, 10-year-old Vacho and a bunch of other kids spend their time during the summer holiday herding the village buffalos. Vacho's classmate, Mladen, is the group's natural leader. After failing to challenge his leadership, Vacho undertakes a journey from an outcast to a troublemaker to a hero.
Tropes in this work:
- Anti-Hero: Vacho. After the kids reject him as a leader, he spends the summer stirring up all kinds of trouble on them and others, but ultimately shows his good nature when he saves Mladencho's infant brother from a house fire.
- Brutish Bulls: The buffalos are described as the powerful animals they are and Vacho once even starts a fight between the buffalos herded by him and those herded by Mladencho.
- Delinquents: Vacho starts slipping into this when the other kids reject him.
- Decho, a teenaged orphan who works for the Tourlaks, is a more complete version of this and it's him who eggs Vacho on. Decho hates anyone even slightly wealthy and resents having to work for them, which leads him to crimes against anyone he sees as rich. At first he just does things like releasing confiscated cattle and causing chaos in the village, or laying a trap for a fancy car to have it pop a tire and give a hard time to the "rich" people driving it. Then he attempts to sabotage the railway, which could have gotten dozens of people killed if he had known how to do any real damage.
- Evil Debt Collector: The tax collector when he comes to confiscate he cattle belonging to Vacho's family.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Vacho initially worked together with the kids to deal with Lako, the local Spoiled Brat who bullied everyone and refuses to play football with them. But when Vacho gets a football, he becomes as possessive of it as Lako was.Mladen: You used to laugh at Lako of the Tourlaks but you turned out just like him!
- The Rival: The ambitious Vacho is one to the calmer and more natural leader Mladen. He tries to claim leadership, but then betrays the group and gets exiled.
- Spoiled Brat: Lako, the son of the local tycoon family, the Tourlaks. He bullies others and flaunts his family's (relative) wealth any chance he gets. When his parents buy him a football (a luxury item at this time and place), he refuses to play with any of the kids and only dangles it in front of them. When Vacho gets fed up with his bullying and attacks him, Lako runs away crying about his father.
- Still the Leader: Vacho gets kicked out of the group after he starts getting too authoritarian as their leader. He continues acting like a leader and attempts to lure some of the other boys to his side even after they've declared Mladencho as their new leader. Vacho only stops trying after he gets one of the boys in trouble and gets him framed for theft, after which everyone unanimously disowns him.
- The '30s: The rural Eastern European view - the social background mostly includes poverty and some references to a communist insurgency (the village teacher got arrested for being an accomplice in a 1925 terrorist attack by the communists), making the otherwise timeless work an
Unintentional Period Piece.
