Vasily Semenovich Matushkin is the author of about 20 books. For his literary and social activities, the writer was awarded the Order of the October Revolution and the Red Banner of Labor. He was the executive secretary of the Ryazan writers' organization. All the heroes of his books are people of labor or military feat. And behind almost every hero there is a living person, a prototype. In the center of the most significant work of V.S. Matushkina - the story "Lyubasha" - the fate of a teenage girl and her younger brothers and sisters during the Great Patriotic War, a picture of the life of a Russian village. The story won wide recognition, was published several times in our country and abroad, and was filmed. Today it is included in the extracurricular reading program for high school students. The collection “The Color of Life” includes selected prose of the writer from 1932 to 1972.