New Swedish Books. Autumn 2016 1
AUTUMN 2016 Mille and the Big Storm Lena Arro (te
xt) Sara Gimbergsson (ill) MILLE AND THE BIG STORM Opal Rights: Opal Mille’s out collecting leaves when a strong wind blows all the leaves away. When Mille returns home the house is also gone and all that’s left is a ‘pelliphar’, a ‘kworka’ and a ‘tibelutt’. Mille sets off looking for a house. But it isn’t easy getting into either ‘Growl House’ or ‘Dead Man’s House’ whilst at the same time keeping track of a ‘pelliphar’, a ‘kworka’ and a ‘tibelutt’. Lena Arro and Sara Gimbergsson have several joint picture books behind them, for example My Friend on the Other Side of the Mountain and Rebus builds a den. Here we’re taken on a real reading adventure in the spirit of Tove Jansson. With Mille and the Big Storm the reader is immediately transported by Sara Gimbergsson’s striking images to a world of adventure and bad weather and by Lena Arro’s words that sparkle with joy for language yet also manage to define what it means to be vulnerable, to almost lose everything and to have to set off into the world. The Bathtub: A History of Everything Per Gustavsson THE BATHTUB: A HISTORY OF EVERYTHING Natur & Kultur Rights: Koja Agency How nice it is to have a bath in the bathtub. But imagine if there wasn’t any water! Then, dad says, there would be no life. Strange. How did it all begin? Lotten has heard about the planets. And she knows that the animals crawled up from the sea onto land, she tells her dad. But what happened after that? Dad and Lotten talk together and imagine everything’s beginning. Fancy that, an ordinary bath time at home can turn into an entire fantasy adventure all about nothing, about beginning of life, and about everything! Through images and text The Bathtub lets us listen in to a sparkling, colourful, perceptive and sensitive dialogue between father and child, in a philosophical make-believe game about life. Per Gustavsson is one of Sweden’s most popular children’s writers with his picture book series about The Princess and the Prince, which have been translated to many languages. In 2014 he received the Elsa Beskow plaque for his book The Dark Side, a prize awarded to the artist that has produced the previous year’s best Swedish picture book for children. 41