New Swedish Books, Autumn 2018 1
New Swedish Books 56 The Hole Behind the Gym Duri
ng break time the children play in the hole. It’s there, right outside the schoolyard, behind the gym, just on the edge of what’s forbidden and what’s unknown. It’s only a hole, filled with roots and stumps, stones and gravel, and yellow clay that never seem to end. Endless possibilities. The grown-ups find problems and dangers, they worry and grumble, and one Monday the hole is gone. Flattened and filled in. It’s lucky that there’s a big heap on the other side of the field! Through the seemingly simple conflict between rules, regulations and imaginative freedom the importance of genuine meeting places is highlighted here. Spaces where it’s possible to negotiate different ways of being. And a place is always a site for social dialogue, where friendships are being tested. The picture book itself becomes, in Emma Adbåge’s infectious depiction of speed and movement, also a genuine spot for the renegotiations of the imagination.