Kholu, a southern teenage boy works as gravestone-washer in the city cemetery with his friends. They create a gang, calling it the Scorpions and turn a wrecked abandoned ship as their hangout. The cemetery both their playground and workplace is called the asylum by them. Events of the story take place during the Islamic revolution in 1979. In a dark chilling night, a group of men drive to the cemetery trying to bury a suitcase. The scorpion boys catch them off guard and shoo them away. The men take off and the next morning the boys discover what they were hiding, a suitcase full of manuscripts, books and pictures of a mustached man. Kholu takes two books and hides it in his home eventually finding the owner of the suitcase from the portraits inside, the same people who tried to dispose it. Thus Kholu sets foot inside the house and into the lives of people from another social class, much different to his own. He meets their teenage son and introduces him to the gang of scorpions…

(He is one of the authors of the HCAA 2018 Shortlist – IBBY). He was born in a low-income family in Abadan, 1962. His childhood and youth passed smoothly; He was absorbed in playing with friends, little discoveries, and theater. Participating in theater classes opened a new door to him. His first writing was a play in the performance of which he himself acted. Little by little he got interested in writing stories and poems. He felt I could speak out this way. But the outburst of the war between Iran and Iraq changed everything all of a sudden. He witnessed war’s destroying strokes for one whole month. He lost many friends, too. His family and he had to leave our hometown. The eight-year war changed his life entirely. From 18 years of age to 24 He did different jobs to help his father keeping the family up. Here is a list of them: photography, repairing bicycles, laboring in a textile factory, construction electric work, forging, masonry, street vending and working in a confectionary. Meanwhile he wrote stories and poems. But, it was not possible to get books published because of the war. Getting married made his life stable. And his life found a distinct direction when he decided to write the stories he made up for his little son for all children. Since then he has been writing stories and poems for children and young adults (80 books.) he has also been continuously active in different domains regarding children and young adults’ literature. He is a founder of the Iranian Association of Writers for Children and Youth and had also been a board member for two terms. He has received 30 national awards for his works, and has been selected as a candidate for the 2017 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.