A story about clever and courageous children who decide to start their own school in the small village of Viiritsa. The children teach each other. It is the early 20th century. The children are led by 9-year-old Valo, who, together with his friend Ville and the other children in the village, teaches the village children to read and write. But not all adults approve of the children's initiative.
The daughter of two famous writers, Helena upholds her late father's reputation, reciting his poems on various occasions and cherishing the memory of the legend. Relations with her mother have deteriorated since she moved to Sweden. Helena blames her mother for abandoning her father. Helena and her mother meet again as Helena's mental health deteriorates and in order to cope, she must face reality through her mother's memoirs. Helena becomes intensely involved in the story and relives it by imagining herself in her mother's place.
The film stars the familiar characters from the Finnish TV show The Autocrats (a political satire of Finnish politics) in a fairy tale where the inhabitants of a small Finnish village have to defend themselves against a despotic emperor.
