The Boy and the Badger

A boy with light brown skin, short curly black hair, a mustard-yellow raincoat and a small grey camera lives in a small house at the edge of the woods. He loves animals more than anything, yet he has never seen a badger up close. One evening he notices a low, sturdy animal with coarse grey-black fur, a white stripe from nose to neck and broad paws with long claws digging near its sett. Instead of moving closer, he sets his camera on a low branch and watches from a distance, promising to stay very quiet and never disturb the animal or its home.

Each morning becomes a treasure hunt: he checks the camera before school and studies every picture of the badger digging for worms, sniffing the air, collecting dry leaves for its bed and scratching its back against a tree. He shares the photos with his best friend, a girl with two black braids and a sticker-covered notebook, and together they bring the discoveries to their teacher, who invites him to present them to the class. A class project on nocturnal animals grows from there, drawing in owls, foxes and bats, and eventually a wildlife expert and the whole school. This gentle tale by Çınar BİBER can be read on Masalcı Baba.