By Paula Holmes

Finland is widely regarded as the happiest county on Earth. Maybe we can’t all move there, but we can all enjoy fabulous books and have a moment of Finnish happiness. Through the last ten years the WorldKidLit blog has published multiple recommendations and reviews on titles from Finland. Below are ten to try with links to the original posts, including three new recommendations. I love championing books from Finland and look forward to seeing what comes in 2027. I have tried to learn Finnish through the years, allowing me to read some picture books in the original language. Of course, I learned quickly that books translated from Finland originate in the Finnish or Swedish language! Do I also try to learn Swedish??

Kepler62: The Invitation

While thinking about what Finnish Kid Lit to recommend I shared my list with Finnish Translator Mia Spangenberg and she suggested the KEPLER62 series. I hesitate to categorize this book as dystopian fantasy or science fiction because this book originally published (simultaneously in Finnish and Norwegian) seems extremely close to reality. In Book One we meet two Finnish siblings Ari and his younger brother Joni on their own while their mother searches for work in a world that is overcrowded and over polluted. An omniscient government plans to send children off to space to colonize a new planet. There is a video game challenge that occupies every waking hour to compete to get to level 100 and the invitation.

When seeking out the series, absolutely judging the book by the cover, I thought it was a graphic novel. Although not a graphic novel, the illustrations are integral to the story, providing drama, clues, and anticipation, with graphic spreads from Pasi Pitäken, known for illustrating the Angry Birds books. The format of the book includes double spreads of pictures, pages saturated in color, many in moody black. The illustration of the characters have an animation quality. Between the engaging illustrations and a storyline that has you worrying about Ari, who feels so responsible for his brother, Joni, who has an unknown illness, and add Area 51, there is a page turning intensity, one gets quickly sucked into the series and 110+ pages fly by quickly. Luckily, Book 2: The Countdown is there to satisfy, and you don’t want to miss Marie, who has an intensity level of her own.

NO FISH IN MY DISH!

I try to keep on top of translations coming to the US from Finland and I feel like I have a good handle on what is coming out, but I always check the WorldKidLit Blog Yearly List of Translations. On occasion I may miss one, but three? And one about a cat to boot! From a publisher not on my radar! I am so embarrassed. But I am also overjoyed. A publisher who loves translations, especially ones from Finland. I will be interested in what Spinning Wheel Stories publishes next. Hopefully since they love translations, they will #namethetranslator on the cover. A.A. Prime has translated several of my recommendations below and I am a fan of her work.

No Fish in my Dish! by Ted Forsström and Åsa Lucander is the follow up to Button Up Buttercup! Those who like little surprises might be able to spy Buttercup in Stiven’s story. Stiven is a very hungry cat, who is very indignant that his needs are not being met. Should not his bowl be filled with delicious fish when he is hungry? Yes the little girl in the house has filled his, yes the woman who is always starring at a box with people in has filled his dish with fish, but only after he shared his butt with everyone. He had to bite the sleeping man’s toe and wake the baby to fill his bowl, but it is empty again! Poor starving Stiven. At last the household figures out that everyone is feeding Stiven and he is absolutely been overfed. Giving Stiven a bowl of water everyone goes back to their routine. An indignant Stiven heads to the neighbors to see what they can provide. The rhyming and lyrical story matched with hilarious pictures, one can appreciate cat butt on a Zoom call, or terrified Stiven caught in a blanket. Reading the titles on the bookshelf and the bulletin board in back, absolutely a treat for the adult reader. I can see both parent and child laughing at the book and reading it over and over. Absolutely the highest praise is to hear, read it again!     

ODDS AND ENDS

Maija Hurme brings a bit of Finnish culture and happiness in the picture book Odds and Ends I originally saw several of the illustrations, specifically the ballet spread with young dancers wearing antlers getting ready for their last performance, during events for Rosie Runs in New York City. This book had been on my radar ever since. Translator Mia Spangenberg and publisher Enchanted Lion Books have brought this book, that was a 2022 Most Beautiful Book in Finland, to the US.

Many of our photos are on our phones; often we scroll through quickly trying to find that one picture we think we took. In a rush to take photos, we often forget to savor the experience, perhaps for the last time. Odds and Ends is a collection of lasts, memorialized in a picture book. The cover, with its use of watercolors to create faded and sometimes yellowed tape holding down multiple small pictures on each page, gives the  illusion of being a scrapbook. Vignettes, illustrated in pencil and watercolor, include Last Chances, Nail-Biting Lasts and A Last That Isn’t Last After All. The translation does not lose its Finnish roots, so there is nature, candy, and a sauna inside. I imagine a child cozying up with a parent, grandparent, or librarian; with much discussion and recollection of one’s own memories of lasts. This is a book that engages through its art and text, but the organization of lasts is a detail not to overlook. Reading Hurme’s work is as if she is sharing a gift of memories with the reader and she challenges us to share memories in return. ODDS AND ENDS has collected multiple star reviews this year and I am hoping that isn’t the last accolade for this fabulous book.

MOOMINS One cannot talk about Finland without talking about Tove Jansson and the Moomins. If you go to Finland, be prepared to name your favorite character. Mine is Little My.

ME AND THE ROBBERSONS by Siri Kolu translated by Ruth Urbom. This is a first in a beloved series and no one should miss out of the joyous adventure of candy bandits. This Finnish title shows up on the WorldKidLit blog multiple times and deservedly so, April 3, 2019 June 10, 2021 and September 5, 2021. The sequel Me and the Robbersons: Bandit Karaoke was published in 2023. You can buy both from the World Kid Lit bookshop here and here.

ROSIE RUNS by Marika Maijala, translated by Mia Spangenberg published by Elsewhere Editions. Marika’s work is truly happiness on the printed page. For me it is the book that opened my world to the joy of Finnish Kid Lit. Blog posts from September 5, 2021 and January 10, 2023  Also don’t miss out on Marika Maijala’s other title translated by Mia Spangenberg published by Elsewhere Editions, A MAGICIAN’S FLOWER.

BICYCLING TO THE MOON by Timo Parvela, illustrated by Virpi Talvitie, translated by Roth Urbom. This is a chapter book that I keep having to replace because I keep giving away my copies. I know this title is a favorite of several other World Kid Lit contributors.

1001 CREATURES by Laura Metz and Aino Järvinen translated by Emily Jeremiah from Yonder: Restless Books for Young Readers. Don’t miss out on the art workshop that was hosted by Scandinavia House.

THE MYSTERY OF RASPBERRY HILL or THE SECRET OF HELMERSBRUK MANOR: A Christmas Mystery middle grade gothic mysteries, both are by Eva Frantz and translated by A.A. Prime published by Pushkin Children’s. Buy from Bookshop.org UK

GOOD NIGHT, SPACE by Linda Bondestam translated from the Swedish by A.A. Prime. For those fans of Linda Bondestam’s work, like me, you will be excited that Yonder: Restless Books for Young Readers will be publishing CHOP CHOP in 2027.

Wishing everyone WorldKidLitMonth happiness!

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