Author: Tara Dairman
Publisher: Random House Children’s Books
Number of pages /Audience: 239 pages / 10-15
The book’s plot:
Life is simple and peaceful in the town of St Polonius, set on a fjord between the impressive Fortinbras Mountains and the vast North Sea. The town’s inhabitants surround their homes with thick walls against the north winds and live in single-story, single-chimney houses. None of them dream of big houses. None of them ever dream of leaving town and moving to bigger cities. They have no expectations other than life except to do their own work and take tourists who come around once in a while. Nevertheless, there is a sneaky game in the middle. The mayor wants to open a plantation with kengerle, the local plant of the town. Kengerden sugar and drinks will be made. If it opens this plantation, the power of mobile phone access to the town everywhere, cable television and the Internet all year, promises an economy that is not dependent on tourists. But if the plantation opens, all the adults will have to work there on guard duty. they’ll be condemned to work. Fortunately, the townspeople generally view this idea negatively. No one has a problem with more internet or economic growth at St. Polonius. That’s why everyone is certain that the mayor will lose next week’s election.
Every year, Founder’s Day is celebrated in town. That day, a few centuries ago, where the town was, whose ship sank and didn’t die in winter, it was twelve years to honor captain Polonius, the town’s founder, who spent the entire winter sleeping in a strange way. It is larger than four months and six days (because the smallest member of the crew is this age) every Resident of St. Polonius must takea bite from the lungs of a bear hunted on the high peaks of themountains.
Twelve years and four months and more than six days older that year, it is time for Jean to participate in the celebrations. The bear that is brought in front of him takes a bite of his lungs, but before he can swallow, he gets nauseated and runs and takes out the snow in his mouth. His parents, who own a farm outside of town, don’t make any noise. He and their little boy, Micah, get in their truck and go home.
That evening, anyone who ate bear liver in town, including Jean’s parents, went into a deep hibernation, just like Captain Polonius and his crew. The only jean who is over twelve years of age and does not sleepis Isara, the son of a family who emigrated from Thailand, and Magnus, son of the Mayor.
Jean and Micah sleep their parentson the carpet and go back to town, along with rambo, their pet sheep, who areon their way to the carpet, in a snowplow brought by their friend Axel. They decide to stay at the home of Katrin, a punk whose mother is a hairdresser and tattoo parlor and lives on the top floor of the beauty salon. The mayor’s son, the cheesy Magnus, gathers the remaining 100 children of the townspeople at city hall, and his mayor, even in normal time, a troublemaker, Bertha and Bartleby. Smuthers also declares that the twinsare the power of thecity. He orders allchildren to take over their parents’ jobs.
St Polonius’ roads have been blocked due to heavy snowfall and satellite receivers are not working. The town has been cut off from the world. Jean, Micah, Katrin, Axel and Isara, the son of the owners of the Thai restaurant in town, seem to have accepted the situation, but they continue to make other plans among themselves. He works at the restaurant next to Jean Isara. Their job is to cook for children. Katrin takes over her mother’s business and starts cutting hair. Micah is located in his father’s office in the main building in the center of town. This situation is a great mess for young children who want to do their parents’ work. The librarian’s daughter starts laying books according to color, Axel puts bricks under his feet and drives his father’s snowplow, and the doctor’s daughter does experiments on her toys first. And the toy rabbit with which he sews his leg in his eye doesn’t look very pleasant.
Nevertheless, Jean and Isara work in the morning to raise food forchildren. Meanwhile, they learn that Magnus is determined to vote on the kenger plantation to be held by his father. The boy draws election campaigns for young children in kindergarten and hangs them on the walls. Other children look like they’re influenced by promises of internet and cable television throughout the year. Jean realizesthatthe plantation will be accepted in the voting of the children and realizes that the adults must take action as soon as possible.
First, he reads that the town chemistDr. Fields’ office reads that excessive consumption of kengers will accumulate in the kidney, poisoning the body and put the consumer in a coma. If Kengere is exposed for a long time, it will result in disease and death. Therefore, working in kenger plantation is extremely harmful to health. Jean understands that Dr. Fieldsshared this result with the mayor. But the man ignored it. Children gradually discover that their parents sleep is a setup. They learn that it was Magnus’ job when he thought he wasn’t doing his father’s job properly and decided to take the reins. Just as in the legend of Founder’s Day, the bear living in the high mountains put the captain and crew to sleep, and their families are in a coma to the lungs of a high-altitude bear. Kenger is also a plant that grows at high altitudes. They learn that the bear that hunted for that night was chosen especially from a species that lives at high altitudes. So the liver could be full of tick poison. Thepeople of Ka saba were also in a coma because they ate liver filled with ichikenger poison. Micah enters Dr. Fields’ lab through the ventilation pipes in his father’s office and learns panzehri. But at the same time, Smuthers is arrested and imprisoned by their twins. Nevertheless, he secretlywrites the formula of theanzehr with thenoodles of the prison food Isara brought to him and delivers it to Jean. Isara prepares the antidote, fills it into the tubes at Katrin’s beauty salon, and Jean makes them drink to adults sleeping in city hall and wake snares. In the end, everything will be restored at St. Polonius.
This story in the fjords is full of exotic details. Blizzard, pirate whale and shark fishing, icebergs, old beliefs about the sea… It is also equally exotic and exciting that children are left alone in a big town covered in snow and their parents are starting to do their jobs. I loved Tara Dairman’s book series All Four Stars. The narrative of this is equally beautiful. The book is even more interesting when a smart and brave girl like Jean is in the lead role, has a sister Micah who does not leave her pet sheep, and is the son of isara, the family’s son, Who set up an icy fission in Thailand.
Delal Arya 
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