Otso and the toe eaters

Anja Portin 2015: Otso ja varpaansyöjät
illustrations by Timo Mänttäri

Otso is staying at his grandmothers and they have fish for dinner. Grandma tells Otso about the food chain: a krill eats plankton, a herring eats krill, a cod eats herring and human eats cod.

This starts to bother Otso: what will eat him? He tries to apply this theory: a bug that will be eaten by his soft toy, which then will be eaten by Grandma's cat. Then Otso will eat the cat and Grandma will eat Otso. Because Grandma's must be at the top of the food chain. Grandma laughs at him and the bug runs away and the cat couldn't care less.




Otso starts to imagine the creatures that will come and eat him.  Do they have bellybuttons? Will they use knife and fork? He can't sleep. Back at home dad reminds him about his name: Otso is a nickname to bear. That relieves Otso and he no longer is scared.

I guess it is universal that kids are afraid of bogeymen. And usually the fear is triggered by the strangest things.  I like the illustrations of this book and how Grandma's house really looks like Grandma's house.

Day at Linnanmäki: the most fun quarter of Helsinki

Katariina Heilala 2015: Päivä Linnanmäellä: "Helsingin hauskin kaupunginosa"
photographs by Teemu Ullgrén
illustrations by Päivi Arenius

To some people Linnanmäki is the only real amusement park in Finland. This book tells about the different rides from the Carousel to the rollercoaster.

The book is full of colorful photos and stories of people visiting the park. I did not know that underneath the roller coaster is a secret garden growing apples and other fruit.






When I was a teenager the best ride was the wooden roller coaster. I still don't know if  the speed of the ride or the fact that I was a afraid the wooden beams would break was the most exciting. Or maybe it was the cutest guys (Jarrumies) operating the cars. It turns out that I was not the only on after the guys of Vuoristorata. In this book many women tell that the only reason they came to Linnanmäki was the guys of the wooden roller coaster, which was built in 1951.

There is really no comparison between the huge modern day amusement park, Linnanmäki feels like a museum, but that is part of it's charm. It is also run by a charity Children's Day Foundation, which supports the wellfare of Finnish children.

Janne from Hämeenlinna: How Janne became Jean Sibelius

Tapani Bagge 2015: Hämeenlinnan Janne: kuinka Jannesta tuli Jean Sibelius
illustrated by Salla Savolainen

Young master Janne has a very powerful imagination. He lives with his mother, aunts and grandma in Hämeenlinna.

The story tells about Jean Sibelius's early years in Hämeenlinna, which at the time was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Finland.

Janne tells about his childhood, which resembles Astrid Lindgren's Emil i Lönneberga. Among other things, he tells his aunts piano student not to come to lessons so often that they obeyed. Janne had an absolute pitch and the practising kids really hurt him.

The Russian soldiers at Hämeenlinna.

In Jean Sibelius's childhood, most people he knew, spoke Swedish. He started at a Swedish school, but changed to a Finnish school.

Janne and his friends live for music. The book ends, when on his grandmothers orders, Janne moves to Helsinki to study law.

The illustrations are very lifelike. The sadness of Janne's death is portrayed with a black swan the magnitude of Janne's imagination by a giant cat fish.

All important places of Jean Sibelius in Hämeelinna.

This year i a jubilee of  150 years of Jean Sibelius's birth.  I really enjoyed Katri Kirkkopelto's Melody Forest, which was very artistic and had fabulous illustrations. This book is about the same topic, but focuses only in the childhood of Jean Sibelius. My six year old son was not interested in Melody Forest, but this book he wanted to read.

The book even tells where the name Jean came from. Very informative, I learned a lot about the 1860s in Hämeenlinna, different instruments and Jean Sibelius. I guess to Finnish children Jean Sibelius is a serious person, but this book makes him more approachable. More books like this, please.

Hello Ruby - adventures in coding

Linda Liukas 2015

Book about programming. Ruby is a little girl with a massive imagination. She is somewhat cheeky: she leaves the pajamas on, when dad tells her to put on school clothes: he did not tell her to take off the pajamas first. (Lucky dad, who wouldn't want  a kid who needs specific instructions to do every day chores?)

One day dad hides Ruby five treasures. She is all excited. But first she has to find the clues. The clues tell that snow leopard lives in the mountains, penguins do not live in houses, foxes live 100 x 4 steps away from the snow leopard. Ruby draws a map and off she goes.

Programming can be seen throughout the book: in Ruby's hints to find the treasures as well as Ruby directing the foxes to be more efficient in their garden.

The kids may like it, but the target audience are the adults: the resistance to program does not come from the kids, but from their parents.  The book has great examples of how repeating something can create larger entities.

The book also includes exercises that help children to think in programming mode. It is not hard if you practice it.

Programming is taught in Finnish comprehensive school, but there is again a heated discussion, why girls are not interested in programming. Programming is considered a mathematical skill. But why? Aren't they programming LANGUAGES? A smart marketing person should take this and redo the programming image. Kids shouldn't be labeled with mathematical skills and language skills. Anybody can learn anything if they just put time and effort to it. Just make it interesting.

How the elk got its antlers

Sari Kanala: Kuinka hirvi sai sarvensa
photos by Hannu Ahonen
water color illustrations Iida Pihl

Story about elk, bear and a fairy.

Elk and bear are good friends. One day a fairy comes with large antlers and offers them to the elk and the bear. The bear wants them. He is the king of the forest after all. The elk doesn't mind.

Summer passes along and the antlers give bear a lot of trouble: he cannot eat berries or catch fish with them. He is almost starving and he calls for the elk and offers the antlers to him. The fairy takes the antlers off the bear and gives them to the elk.

The lesson of this story is that you don't have to have everything. Sometimes you are better off without gigantic antlers. Let the elk have them.

The book is illustrated by photographs and watercolors. The photos have be "photoshopped" so that the elk, the girl (ie the fairy) and the bear can all be peacefully side by side. This book also has the text both in Finnish and in English.

Fabulous Light houses

The cover demonstrates the diversity
of the lighthouses

Mika Myllyneva 2012: Mainiot majakat

I have never visited any of the lighthouses in this book. I have seen the Suomenlinna Chuch, which is used as a lighthouse. But the names of the light houses I have heard many times in the radio, where they tell the marine weather. 

A few summers back, my parents spend a night at the Bengtskär lighthouse. It looks nice, but my father was complaining that there was nothing to do.

 In the map (the picture below), you can see that Märket is really close to Sweden. It is actually divided by the boarder between Sweden and Finland.

 The beginning of the book confused me a little, when they talked about valomajakka (literal translation light-lighthouse). I was thinking can there be a light house without a light. Actually there can, the early lighthouses were ID lighthouses without light.  I learned something new again by reading a "kids book".

The lighthouses on a map

The content of the book:

Early lighthouses
Finnish lighthouses
Bogaskär hard luck light house
Jussarö wreck cemetary
Many turns of Tiiskeri
Valassaaret
Tankar the light house of oddities
Gustavsvärn from fortress ruins into a lighthouse
Bengtskär the mother of all light houses
Isokari almost got blown up
The light houses of Helsinki
Utö the first  light lighthouse
Märket between two countries
Sälskär

Bengtskär the mother of all lighthouses

Pekka Väisänen also wrote about the Finnish lighthouses for the Finnish Embassy in London.

Tales from the old church

Sari Kanala 2007
English translation Tony Melville
watercolor illustrations by Iida Pihl
Photographs by Ismo Hannula and Simo Peteri

Tales from the Old Church of Petäjävesi.
The stories tell about an elf, who rings the bells at night, micshievous crows that learn a lesson and the church getting ready for Christmas.

The illustrations are photograhps that have watercolor elements in it. Sometimes it is really hard to tell apart the watercolor from the actual photo. The old church has a fairy tale charm to it.

We Finns take our wood seriously.  Stones were used scaresly since they were so expensive. And so we made our churches from wood. This wooden church is part of the World Heritage Covention.

When I visit the grand churches of Europe, I always wonder how much money was spent on them. How many people could have been fed or educated with that money? On the other hand, I admire them and am very glad that they still exist and that they are not torn down because of some idealism.

Day of magic

Kaisa Järnefelt 2014: Taikapäivä
illustrated by Riikka Jäntti



Maaria is spending time with her grandparents' house. She has imaginery friends: a horse named Rhubarb. With it Maaria attends summer wedding where many couples get married, also a frog marries a mouse.

It is magical to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma is baking pastries and Grandpa can be mistaken for a sleuth, but he also takes Maaria fishing.

Grandma's red cottage

The book also includes short poems, including an ode to Grandma's cottage and the sleuth lying in the hammock.


My Grandma used to live in a red cottage like here in this book and she always had some pastries, such as the korvapuusti for us kids.  My mother makes the best korvapuusti in the world and my boys love them (as do their dad and everyone, who has ever tasted them).

Grandma baking lots and lots of sweet rolls.

I never had such an imagination as Maaria here in this book. But just a while ago my father came indoors with a spoon. He had found it near a big stone. I admitted that it must have been mine, because as a child I had thought that stone was a sacrificial stone and I had wanted to dig around it. (At the time I wanted to be an archaeologist.) Needless to say, my concentration was lost before I got through the weeds.

Melody forest : in the footsteps of Jean Sibelius

Katri Kirkkopelto 2015: Soiva metsä Sibeliuksen matkassa

"Music is like a butterfly. If you hold it in the palm of your hand, turning it this way and that, inspecting it, its wings will lose their shine. It will still fly, but will no longer shimmer as it did before."

Jean Sibelius tells this to his grandchild, who is visiting him and Aino Sibelius.

Aino Sibelius tells the child about Jean or familiarly Janne. The book is beautifully illustrated. Most illustrations are from Finnish nature.

Jean Sibelius in Ainola with his grandchild

The book comes with a CD, which was recorded in Ainola by cellist Jussi Makkonen and pianist Nazig Azezian. The play some of Sibelius' most universally loved compositions, my favorites Finlandia and Valse Triste.   Finlandia gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.

Aino and Jean Sibelius on their honeymoon in Pielijärvi

Jean Sibelius was born 150 years ago and he is buried in Ainola, his home. Ainola is still open for visits.


This book has been published in Finnish, Swedish and English.

Pirate of Fog Island

Riina Katajavuori 2015: Sumusaaren merirosvo
illustrated by Christer Nuutinen

The story start, when the leading character tells us that his/her mother is a pirate: she has a golden tooth and she sings pirate songs and dances in high boots. There is also a curvy sword on the wall of his/her house.

The book is written in "I" perspective and the name of the child is never given. In my mind it is a small boy, but my sons think she is a girl. Fantastic Finnish language!

The child  studies the sea. She/he tells about the odd things, such as the blood of a crawfish is colorless, but when it is in contact with air, it turns blue.




One day the fishermen are dumping dead fish to the sea. They must be stopped: everything is getting sick.

The book has fantastic illustrations and the message is very important. Save the seas! Especially in Finland we are worried about the health of the Baltic sea.  It needs to be looked after.