This book is the most valuable collaborative final product of our eTwinning project, "Under the Same Sky, Our Compass is Love." Hidden within its lines and boundless illustrations is the shared effort, heart, and creativity of all our students.
It was written to guide children through "peer bullying" and "cyberbullying," which are some of the biggest storms children can face in today's world. Our goal is to remind our primary and middle school students that they are never alone when facing bullying, to instill the courage to say "stop," and to show the healing power of empathy.
Our character Umut's 14-chapter journey, stretching from a stormy beginning to a lovely ending, was entirely shaped by the shared imagination of our students. This book is concrete proof of how children can overcome all forms of discrimination and bullying when they touch each other's hearts with kindness. Because we know that when we take love as our compass under the exact same sky, we can make the world a much more beautiful place.
Let us remember: "Love is the best medicine to solve any problem in the world!"

Umut was a lovely boy who loved drawing and had a colorful imagination. This year, they moved to a new city because of his father's job, and Umut was about to start his new school. He felt both great excitement and a little fear inside. "Will my new friends like me? Will they play games with me?" he thought. He gripped his backpack tightly, took a deep breath, and took his first step into the schoolyard. The sky was bright blue, and everything looked beautiful. However, Umut did not yet know how much he would need the compass of love in this school.
When the bell rang for the first recess, the schoolyard was filled with the lively voices of children. Umut excitedly went out to the yard and walked toward the kids standing by the basketball hoop to make some friends. Just as he was about to say, "Hello, can I play too?", one of the boys in the group, Arda, turned toward him. He looked Umut up and down, then raised his eyebrows at his friends and said, "We don't play with strangers, this is our area!" The other children joined Arda and turned their backs. Umut felt as if he was frozen to the spot. The lively voices in the yard suddenly turned into a dull roar. The excitement inside him was replaced by a great disappointment. The first shadow had fallen upon his heart.
The next day, Umut came to school, trying not to lose his morale. He sat at his desk in the classroom and opened his favorite sanctuary, his drawing notebook. He was drawing a huge, bright blue sky with children holding hands underneath. Just then, a shadow fell across his desk. It was Arda. "Let's see what the new kid is scribbling," he said, and snatched the notebook out of Umut's hands. Umut said, "Please give it back, it's very important to me!" but his voice was trembling. Arda held the notebook up in the air and mocked, "You call this a drawing? It's literally baby stuff!" A few other children started laughing at him. Umut's heart was beating very fast. He wanted to get his notebook back, but he was too scared to move. Bullying was no longer just being left out in the yard; it had reached the point of belittling his hard work.
Unfortunately, the bullying did not stay only within the school walls. That evening, Umut logged into the group chat they had created with his classmates to check his homework. However, when he looked at the screen, he could not believe his eyes. Arda had taken a photo of the drawing notebook he snatched at school and uploaded it to the group. Underneath, he wrote, "Baby drawings of the funny new kid! He thinks he's an artist!" A few hurtful emojis and mocking messages were added below. Umut's hands trembled, and tears silently rolled down his cheeks. Now, he did not even feel safe in his own room at home. Through the internet, the bullying had sneaked into his room as cyberbullying. Umut slowly turned off the tablet, turned out the light, and sat in the dark, wondering what to do.
When the morning sun seeped into his room, Umut had a huge knot in his stomach. His breath tightened as he thought about walking through the school gates, facing Arda's stares, and those messages. When his mother entered the room, Umut said, "Mom, can I stay home from school today? My stomach hurts a lot." In fact, it wasn't his stomach that was hurting, but his heart, broken by Arda and his friends. School was no longer a safe home for him; it was like a stormy sea. His mother put her hand on Umut's forehead; he didn't have a fever, but she saw the deep sadness in his eyes. Umut did not go to school that day. He spent the whole day sitting silently in his room, without even touching his drawing notebook. Bullying had taken away not only Umut's joy but also his desire to learn.

The next morning, Umut woke up feeling just as sad as before. He looked at his drawing notebook on the desk, but he did not feel like opening it. The hurtful messages from the group chat kept replaying in his mind.
Later that afternoon, his mother gently knocked on the door and came into his room. She sat beside him and noticed that he looked quieter and sadder than usual. Just then, his tablet made a notification sound. A new message had appeared in the class group chat, and Umut's heart started beating faster.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up the tablet and prepared to open the message. His mother sat quietly beside him, waiting. What he was about to read could be the beginning of a big change.
When she entered the classroom that day, Sevgi Teacher drew a huge compass on the blackboard. The whole class looked at the board with curiosity. The teacher said, "Children, ships use a compass so they don´t lose their way in stormy seas. Our classroom also has a compass to help us find our way during stormy days: The Compass of Love!"
Then, instead of the directions, she wrote "Empathy", "Friensdship", "Respect", and "Cooperation". Turning to the class, she added, "Sometimes, without realizing it, we can break our friends hearts like a ship caught in a storm with our words or internet messages. The important thing is that our compass always points to love". As the teacher mentioned cyberbullying and messages, Arda slowly lowered his head. Teacher Sevgi had not mentioned anyone´s name, but for the first time, Arda was beginning to realize how what he did to Umut had broken that compass.


Everyone started coloring their own piece with great excitement. While Umut was making his sun shine with his colorful paints, he heard a sigh from the next desk. When he looked up, he noticed Arda looking helplessly at his paper. Arda's crayons were broken, and he didn't know how to complete the rays of the sun. His paper looked scribbled. Umut hesitated for a moment, remembering those bad days Arda had put him through. But then, he looked at the "Compass of Love" on the blackboard. True courage was not about taking revenge, but doing good. Umut extended his most beautiful yellow and orange pencils toward Arda: "You can use my pencils if you want. Look, your piece is the rays of mysun; if we color it together, it will be much brighter," he said. Arda looked at Umut in surprise. His face turned bright red.
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