Books | The new children’s books feature time travel, kicking a ball and saving the planet

For +5 year olds

Past and future tense by holidays

Marketta Pyysalo: A journey through time. Photo by Teemu Juhani. Children’s Center. 160 pp.

Marketta Pyysalo (formerly Vaismaa) have done together a few years ago of Carlos da Cruz with an information picture book Time book. Spring novelty A journey through time approaches the philosophical dimensions related to time and the calculation of time through time travel with an emphasis that is interesting to slightly older schoolchildren.

Pyysalo awakens the reader to think about the mystery of time and the spirals of the past, present and future. Toivo is supposed to travel by train to his grandmother, but he ends up on a time trip to history. The boy meets e.g. John Lennon’s, Vincent van Gogh, Jules Verne, Brontë’s siblings and by Ada Lovelace, who today are considered undisputed celebrities due to their career and production. During their lifetime, however, they faced many kinds of opposition.

A journey through time is a good example of a children’s book that skilfully combines fact and fiction, which actually encourages you to look for more information from other sources.

Teemu Juhanin the caricature illustration draws material from the British illustration tradition and brings a suitable contrast and humor to the philosophical story.

Päivi Heikkilä-Halttunen

Grandma’s many friends

Susanna Silvander-Rosti: Sulo and Elsi’s grandmother on the run. Photo by Nadja Sarell. Big Dipper. 30 p.

Together A social media influencer who runs the YouTube channel Two Mothers with his wife Susanna Silvander-Rosti has taken it upon himself to spread the message of diversity in children’s books. That’s good, even though it seems that the diversity of families and people has started to show nicely in the new children’s books anyway.

Sulo and Elsi’s grandmother on the run – in the picture book, the twins’ grandmother goes into hiding and leaves clues to her whereabouts for the children who go looking for them. On their trip, Sulo and Elsi come across many kinds of people, such as a stuttering football player and a tattooed kindergarten teacher.

The book is cool and the idea of ​​a runaway grandmother is funny, even if the story falls a little short of the introduction of the characters. The different characteristics of people are still not shown, but they appear as part of the story.

In the first volume of Silvander-Rost’s book series Sulo and Elsi’s new neighbors (2021) got to know a wide variety of families.

Aino Miikkulainen

The treat would need stick letters

Martin Widmark, Helena Willis: Lasse-Maija’s cartoon mysteries 2. Finland. Outi Menna. Oak. 136 pp.

Swedish the duo Lasse-Maija’s detective agency -the virtues known from the books are unchanged when by Martin Widmark the words and of Helena Willis the drawings are tied together into cartoons. Although someone always falls into mischief, no one is fundamentally evil. And the resourceful young detectives Lasse and Maija do not embarrass anyone when solving crimes.

Now one cover holds no less than 13 detective stories, which offer nice hints for the solution of the riddle along the way.

Well, which are better, Illustrated books or these short series?

“The good thing about cartoons is that you can see who’s speaking from the speech bubble” (especially when the father’s finger indicates which part is being read), “and in books the fact that the bubbles don’t cover the pictures at all,” judges a student of other reading skills.

It would greatly benefit his learning if Comic Book Mysteries speech bubbles would be stick letters instead of text.

Antti Majander

For +7 year olds

When you can’t even trust your loved ones

Tinka Baer: Echoes I: Towards the unknown. Photo by Mari Kasurinen. Work. 223 pp.

New domestic the opening of a children’s fantasy trilogy is always a source of special joy. Journalist-nonfiction writer Katarina Baerin the first children’s novel tells about tiny aliens, the Echoes, who have crashed on our planet Earth.

by JRR Tolkien like a classic fantasy, the ring and its disappearance are a central part – although instead of a ring, it’s about the ring around the body that maintains the balance and identity of the Echoes.

The echolocators are dependent on ummies, which produce the fluff liquid and heat for their needs. Echoes have their own way of speaking: they repeat the last syllable of a sentence like an echo. The book is aimed at elementary school children who are just practicing their reading skills, so the strange language can be a bit confusing at first, but you will quickly get used to the unique dialogue.

Tauri, Nekkar, Nunk and Rastaban, who stands out from the rest because of his flying skills, solve the mystery of the missing children. It is soon revealed that not all the intentions of the autocratic leader of the Echoes and Tauri’s mother, who works under him, will stand the light of day. The idea that a child cannot trust even his own parent is exceptionally radical in its setting in a children’s novel.

Pop artist Mari Kasurinen like the story, the four-color illustration blurs the gender of the central characters.

Päivi Heikkilä-Halttunen

Valuable stories about animals

Suvi Auvinen, Anni Nykänen: House of Lucky Animals, Stories from Tuulispää. WSOY. 64 pp.

Suvi Auvinen written by Anni Nykänen illustrated by House of lucky animals tells about the Animal Welfare Center Tuulispää, founded in 2012, and its residents. The frolicking goats Aprilli and Anselmi or the unique Agda, who didn’t really know if it was a rooster or a hen, manage to seem like complete animal characters in the short stories.

Between the stories, the characteristics of different animal species and animal production are told. The purpose of the book is clearly to teach to appreciate the life of every animal, but it still manages to tell, for example, about milk production in a neutral and calm manner. Warm illustration supports the message. Everyone can make their own interpretation of things after reading, for example, about the Vippa cow and its Konsti calf hidden in the forest and their rescue in Tuulispää. An elementary school student devoured the book at once and praised it immediately. The stories offer food for thought even for an adult reader.

Aino Miikkulainen

Dirty and matter-of-fact about futs

James Campbell: Crazy fun football. Photo by Rob Jones. Finnish Ulla Selkälä. Big Dipper. 239 pp.

For a child the question asked – is it a funny book? – gets a nice answer: “You can see it on the cover.” Even when opened and read Crazy fun football – the book really keeps its promise. The work is made in the same way as the other Hullunhauska books by the British children’s author and comedian, i.e. the text is divided into short chapters and has many subheadings, darkened words and pictures. Among the matter-of-fact, there are plenty of jokes to keep the mind alert. To which category, matter or joke, for example, belongs that Gary Lineker pooped his pants in Italy’s 1990 World Cup match?

The book is a good proof that football is for everyone. The cards of the greatest players of all time show it like that Zico, Megan Rapinoe than Becky Sellark too. For racism, Campbell gives an absolute red card and no joke.

Sanna Kangasniemi

Active children in the ruins of Turku

Roope Lipasti: Children of the Ruin City. WSOY. 138 pp.

Roope Chest of Drawers the work continues the Runeberg Junior Award Children of the Burning City (2022) story. The year is still 1827 and Turku has changed from a lively city to sad ruins, where ash turns people into trolls. However, the sisters Peter and Hulda and their friend Jaakko are fine and as busy as they were at the time of the fire. Now they have a loot to look for, which the dead Kierosilmä-Kalle has hidden somewhere. Of course, you can’t survive without danger in this book either.

Lipasti is a confident storyteller whose five-part story has a solid historical framework that will delight even adult readers. On the wing of an engaging adventure story, a large amount of information is told, starting with the strangeness of collecting mushrooms, the architect Angel’s to plan for the new site plan. The difficulties of Hulda’s studies and the words of her teacher, mamselli Tengström, about how taking care of babies prevents writing, bring deeper currents. At the end of the book, the mother is getting married to Johan Ludvig. We know that story: with Fredrika Runeberg (nee Tengström) was by JL Runeberg with eight children.

Sanna Kangasniemi

A super guinea pig is always needed

Paula Noronen: The super guinea pig and the animal backlash. Photo by Terese Bast. Oak. 153 pp.

Super guinea pigseries has already reached its sixteenth installment, but the power has not subsided – at least judging by the five-year-old’s enthusiasm. Super guinea pig is a must read! Paula Noronen in the latest book, Emilia Laitinen-Nieminen goes on a slightly more special company trip to the Marga and Riini islands, but the tasks are the same, Supermarsua is needed to settle the unfairness of this world. The book’s quick twists and incredible events are clearly to the taste of a toddler, so you can really throw yourself into this series even before school age!

Sanna Kangasniemi

A beautiful adventure into the past

Riikka-Maria Rosenberg: Saara and naakka. Illustration by Kati Vuorento. Oak. 114 pp.

Sarah it’s sad when parents don’t understand that school is boring. However, a night time trip to 1779 with her pet Petersson makes the girl have second thoughts. To think that in the 18th century it was pointless for girls to dream of being a veterinarian, let alone other professions! Riikka-Maria Rosenberg has created a past world rich in details, which gives a nice nod to the modern world and provides a lot of information. Kati Vuorenton the delicate illustrations have a timeless charm that appeals too His poetry girl and Give it– his book Maija Karman with cover images for voracious older generations.

Sanna Kangasniemi

For +12 year olds

The amusement park breathes

Ella Paija: Ring the carousel bell for me. Oak. 363 pp.

Is not hard to recognize Särkänniemi already Ella Paija from the opening sentences of the first work: “I’m not an island, I’m a cape. A 168-meter-high tower, a concrete cotton swab, oozes out of my skin. Five dolphins lived on my surface for a long time, but now they are gone.” But who is in the voice? Well, of course, the novel’s only self-narrator, Huvipuisto. An exciting narrator solution alternates with chapters that follow the summer of the young seasonal workers of a realistic amusement park. From Teemu’s, Elina’s and Marianne’s perspectives, the other summer workers and above all the network of their mutual relationships become familiar. As a buzzing strangeness behind everything lives the Amusement Park, which has set its eyes on Teemu. Then a small child disappears.

Paija’s narration, characters and dialogue are all skillfully natural and he has the ability to draw the reader along. The combination of the supernatural and the realistic has been done in such a way that the setting is left spinning in the mind.

Sanna Kangasniemi

On the edge of big secrets

JS Meresmaa: Daughter dim, maid dark. Myllylahti. 299 pp.

JS Meresmaa is on the edge of his own genre when writing long fantasy. The daughter of dusk, the maid of darkness is clearly the first part of a series suitable for more adult tastes, which introduces the reader to the two main characters, healer apprentice Malka and jeweler Arona.

World building and the description of various creatures and living things take up a large part of the book’s pages, but good fantasy actually requires this kind of thing. It is still easy to get attached to the world of the story. The Tarva, the Jaral and the Kävynke wander along the kingdom of Rauniara, where eternal autumn is lived under the watchful eye of the autocratic Ruhtinattare.

Those hungry for romance get intensity and love from Malka’s part. Arona’s part, on the other hand, tells the story of tackling loneliness, self-discovery and growing up in the shadow of a parent. At the center of both perspectives is still the understanding that there are things to keep quiet about.

The young women solve a mystery on their own, which is also called Obeloo. The end of the book begins to weave together two separate plots, but the pages run out before Malka and Arona ever meet. This will happen in the sequel, which the reader will have to wait for.

And what the heck is Obeloo?

Venla Rouhiainen