Children's Books (ages 8-12) • Novel

Bozuk Pusula
BROKEN COMPASS

İsmet Bertan

A caravan ride on the long and narrow country roads...

İsmet Bertan takes the children on an Anatolian journey full of adventure and mystery. The caravan holiday of the grandfather and the grandson who are fond of each other stretches from Hattusa to Divriği, from Mount Nemrut to Göbeklitepe. Âşık Veysel’s melodies meet with Flamenco dance in the novel colored with local riches in the traces of ancient civilizations. The breathless, surreal search of two compass figures struggling to reunite with each other is narrated in an emotional language.

Overview

Tunç, a sixth grader, and his grandfather who just turned sixty, set off on a caravan trip they dreamed of during the summer holidays. Leaving Ankara, the duo heads east in Anatolia, thanks to a strange compass moving in random directions with a mind of its own. Tunç, his mind very much on the seaside, cannot understand at first why his grandfather is following the antique compass. He makes new friends on the way and is surprised to realize that he is warming up to his history lesson. This adventure will start making them think that the compass they thought was broken actually had a purpose…

AUTHOR

İsmet Bertan

He was born in 1959, in a small village of Manisa. After studying Turkish Language and Literature in the university, he worked as a teacher for a couple of years. He moved to İzmir afterwards and worked as a documentary program producer and director in TRT (Turkish Radio Television) for many years. His first children’s novel Speedy Tosbi (Hızlı Tosbi, 2005) was published together with its picture book Little Tosbi Looks for His House (Minik Tosbi Evini Arıyor, 2005) in […]
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