The saunaflamingo

Lauri Hirvonen 2016: Inka ja saunaflamingo

Inka is a small girl and now she is vacationing at the summer house. Grandma and Grandpa come also to the summer house and together with Grandma Inka explores the nature and hears stories about Grandma's parents and childhood. Inka questions some information she hears: for example that the waterstriders can  run on water, because of the hair in their feet. Inka has seen the hair in her father's legs and he has to swim like the rest of us.

The title was intriguing: I could not imagine, what a saunaflamingo is (for information that is also the same in Finnish).  Spoiler, stop reading if you do not want to know what it is.  Inka and Grandma are in sauna and are planning what to play next day. Grandma is looking kind of pink and she decides to be a saunaflamingo.

I like the illustrations of this book. Well I guess you knew that because I only choose books, which illustrations are pleasing.  But also the text was smart and kind. Cutest was refering dad's leg hairs to those of waterstriders'. And again the book emphasized the importance of Grandmothers.

Pretty funny journey

Aura Sevón 2013: Aika metka retki
phographs Paula Lehto
drawings Emilia Ahonen

Seven year old Elsi is listening to her Great-grandmother's stories about her childhood and is taken back in time to the 1930's.

Things were little different then. Elsi is born 2006, her mother 1974, her grandmother 1949 and greatgrandmother Lempi in 1928.

Elsi imagines being a washer woman.

Lempi's mother was a working woman and the kids in the block stayed home with other kids. Some women were taking care of them. Elsi imagines what the life was like back then.

The book has lovely reconstructed photographs and the story tells many details from the past.

I cannot help but comparing this story to my mother and grandmother. I am born 1977, my mother 1949 and her mother 1911. As a comparison: we are missing a generation. But  my husband is born 1975, his mother 1954 and his grandmother 1928.

My grandmother was a maid at a local manor so the stories in from my family evolve around farming not city life. That is why this book was so interesting. I assume that not all families living in the city were like this, so it might be a little romanticized, but I don't care. Nice book any way.