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Mehmet Akif ACAR

Montsuzlar (Those Without Coats)

Writer: Ahmet Ömer ORUÇ (12 Years Old)

Translator: Mehmet Akif ACAR (14 Years Old)       

Editor: Behice KAVAK



Ömer Açık, you have embellished an ordinary, even quite ordinary subject with beautiful descriptions by making people question it and creating a story out of it. Veysel is an ordinary high schooler, but he can’t buy ostentatious coats of high school just because of alphabetical order. when this is the case, He begins to question, whoever discovered the alphabetical order. If he finds whoever invented the alphabetical order, he is going to strangle that person, (hopefully he can’t). The story tells the questioning of a stereotyped subject like the alphabetical order. Not in a boring language for sure. The events in his daily life are talked about more than necessary, which is proof of how much this book was written for the readers to embrace. So, his descriptions are not depressing. And on top of that, it's very fluent.


You most probably faced a similar story like this. Actually, the writer is maybe telling us that the young are questioning things that are pointless. But actually, saying these pointless is like insulting. Because everything that can be questioned has a logic. I really enjoyed the father character in the book. Protecting an honest personality always is a representation of virtue. However, Veysel finds his father's “stubborn” state as nonsense, and he begins to understand his father. Because he begins to be insistent on his case. Reads and writes texts related to alphabetical order. Although he gets overwhelmed, he proceeds without giving up.


Montsuzlar should be taught to the teachers and principals in my opinion. Because the students give the principal a nickname and the principal like the nickname so introducing himself like that is a good example of holding the disciple in his hands in the book. However, he doesn't want the students to call him with a nickname, he knows that the students are always going to do it and he acts suitably to it. 


This book also describes how dialogues can take place between young people and their families. It portrays the dialogues between young individuals, who, in American movies, have a fully prepared breakfast but only take a sip of orange juice before going to school, and their mothers. The book does not include conversations like those of European gentlemen and ladies from the bourgeoisie who have experienced the Industrial Revolution, even cutting peas while eating. It is a clear and straightforward book. It tells of a father who tells stale jokes, and a family trying to laugh at those jokes.

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