Timo Parvela: Tuliterä review

The Kalevala, the national epic of Finland, ended when the pieces of Sampo were lost and hidden around the world. Hundreds of years have passed and now we have two kids, Ilmari and Ahti who play kantele in their school spring ceremony when something starts to happen. The headmaster sinks in the ground and people get all weird.
Soon the boys learn that they are not just any boys, but the Guardians of the Sampo - just like their fathers before them. Fathers, who went in a fishing trip and never got back.
And someone is after the kantele.
At the same time people have opened the old mine of the local town, but what are they mining? And what are the creatures working there?

Following the story of The Kalevala, Parvela has created an interesting piece of children's literature to kids who after reading this will know much more about our national epic. There are battles, action and humour: everything a 10-year-old kid wants.

The names of the characters refer to the epic and the story includes poems written in the Kalevalan runic way.

Sadly this has only been written in Finnish, but I would think any other kid from any other country would be eager to read this strt of a trilogy called Sammon vartijat (The Guardians of the Sampo).
/ [Caterin S.]

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