Päivi Mäkirinta has met Helen Dunmore, author of the Ingo fantasy series, who visited Finland last spring. The balance of nature and family life are important motifs in Dunemore’s writing. Contrary to many other fantasy novels where feelings are treated superficially, Dunmore wants her characters to develop and their complex feelings to be depicted realistically. She thinks that the Harry Potter books have not over-shadowed other books for youth, as some people have feared. Instead, they have made young people more interested in books and reading.

Studying functionality, assaults on unity and meaning, as well as boundary breaking, Jutta Setälä explores postmodernism in Finnish picturebooks. Her study based on 12 picturebooks shows variations in the degree and extent of postmodernism, as well as in relations to audience. Genuinely postmodern picturebooks resist unambiguous classification as children’s literature. Such books include Tomi Kontio and Camilla Pentti’s Lehmä jonka kyljessä oli luukku, Rosa Liksom’s Jepata Nastan lentomatka, Kasper and Nora Strömman’s Sohvaperuna and Julia Vuori’s Sika Pariisissa.

Saija Räsänen presents an exhibition of Czech children’s book illustration that has been on display in Helsinki.

Niklas Bengtsson writes about the Finnish translations of Danish author Lene Kaaberbøl’s fantasy novels. He notes that Kaaberbøl, author of the lightweight W.I.T.C.H. –series, surprised everyone with her artistic fantasy novels. Näkijän kirja and Katrionan tarina feature a much deeper and richer narrative voice. Kaaberbøl depicts convincingly the traditional battle between good and evil, as well as the dynamics of power, family relations and the growing pains of adolescence. Bengtsson also compares Kaaberbøl to Robin Hobb.

Marita Rajalin explores the war motif in Finno-Swedish literature for children and young adults. She concludes e.g. that fairy tales brought comfort to children whose lives were drastically changed during the war. In her book Sagor från främlingsgatan, Irmelin Sandman Lilius depicts both the horrors of war and the enchantment of fairy tales. After the war, experiences kept being estranged through fantasy worlds as in Tove Jansson’s work. During the war years in the 1940s experiences from both the front and the home front where depicted, often in a naïve and superficial manner. Artistically successful novels, however, are Tove Hedström’s Allt blev annorlunda (1942), which shows how war obliterates the sense of everyday safety, and Harriet Clayhill’s Vi abiturienter (1938), which captures the pessimism among youth under the threat of war. Also pacifist ideas are communicated in the works of Kai Söderhjelm.

Katri Syrjälä presents historical material from the institute’s library collection, which she catalogued funded by a scholarship. Taina Kasso writes about the importance of fiction when teaching Finnish children living abroad their mother tongue.

In the news section we learn e.g. that Riitta Kuivasmäki from Finland and Sonja Svensson from Sweden have been appointed IRSCL Fellows. 
 

Translation: Maria Lassén-Seger