Anastasia Strokina

Kit plivet na sever

The Whale swims north KompasGuide. Moscow 2015. 96 pages. Illustrations by Irina Petelina Age 6+ and adults

Foreign rights:

China, Croatia (full English translation available)

Tags: philosophical tale, journey, North, indigenous peoples, fantastic animals

Written for the youngest readers, this philosophical tale gained many fans among older readers. It stands out among other texts for children because of the magical and unique atmosphere of the North it creates and the universal values it conveys.

Mamoru is a small fantastic creature with a very long tale. He has just finished his studies in a school of islands’ keepers, and now he has to find his island to take care of it. He wasn’t the best student, that’s why a difficult condition was imposed on him: to recognize his island among hundreds of others, he has to first see it in dreams while sleeping. If he fails, he will turn into a stone.

Mamoru makes his journey through the oceans on the back of a whale. They go north, because in his first dream Mamoru saw that his island would be very far from all others, situated in hot climates, already occupied by other mamorus, who were better students. During their journey to the Bering sea, Mamoru and the whale will, partly in reality and partly in dreams, discover customs and legends of northern peoples, meet fantastic creatures and animals and help them to solve their problems. Each encounter and dream deals, through parables, with an aspect of human life: friendship, family, hope, belief in one’s self, kindness towards other beings, dreams and imagination. Friendship between Mamoru and the whale will be tested several times, and all their journey teach the reader that no one can find his island on his own but only being open to the world and other beings.