Plot

The quiet life of a boy and his family is endangered when his father does not return home from his work collecting honey in the forest.

The young boy Yusuf's best friend is his father, who supports his family's modest life with the honey he collects from tall trees in the forests of the remote Turkish countryside. Yusuf is a quiet boy, and his mother is concerned for his future. Perhaps he will follow in his father's footsteps, or perhaps school will offer him other opportunities. But the honey crop is failing, and Yusuf has trouble learning how to read. The greatest fear strikes when Yusuf's father doesn't return home from the forest.—Peter Brandt Nielsen

Turkish village schoolboy (6) Yusuf father feels and performs well when close to doted, devoted father Yakup, a beekeeper in the mountainous forest. Despite a patient village teacher and class neighbor Hamdi who puts up with ear-bashings when Yusuf steals his homework, the coveted red ribbon of merit seems utterly out of reach. Because the honey harvest is falling and some hives die, father goes place new ones at the faraway black cliff. But days go by without news, so worries rise, yet Yusuf also does some growing up as 'man of the house'.—KGF Vissers