“Baler means a friendly, cordial person. But I am not exactly friendly, or cordial. I am 10. I like computer games, spaghetti with gravy, swimming, flying cockroaches and racoons wearing orange baseball hats. I have never seen a racoon wearing an orange baseball hat so far. But if I had, I would have gone to him and say, “Hey dude, why don’t you come to dinner to us this evening?” Letters to a Stranger is about good old, conventional pen-friendship. Since internet is in our life, snail-mailing is out of fashion. So thinks Baler, a 10 year-old boy, when he receives a homework from his teacher: Everybody in the class will write a letter to another child he/she doesn’t know. But what is this? We are all endowed with the possibilities of the internet, why should we still write letters like 110 years-old people, he thinks. Baler finally sits to work and composes a letter indeed, but later he finds the idea futile and drops the letter into a tree hollow. But then, a strange thing happens and he finds a letter addressed to himself in the very same hollow! On the other hand, the stationary of the town has brought a giant telescope, which is blowing Baler’s and his best friend Daghan’s mind off. Since they are 5, they dream of discovering a planet. In order to buy the telescope they need to collect 2999 Liras. But where? He will find the answer, when his road crosses with his miraculous new penfriend. Letters to a Stranger calls children to meet the world of handwritten letters and all adults to return to their childhood full of penfriends. The letters between Baler, a child and Meneviş, a much older child preparing to leave the world bring us all the warmth of old days. How about writing a letter to a child you have never met before? Or to a best friend? You can even write a letter to your childhood, or to your future self! |
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Novel, Tudem, 2016, 160 pages Themes: Penfriendship, communication, curiosity Age: 9+
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letters to a stranger
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children's books, children's novels, family, Hanzade Servi, pen-friendship book, rights, turkish books, turkish literature, Turkish novel
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