Mo-ko-ma-ki

First Mokomaki! large picture book cover.

Satu Konttinen 2011: Mo-ko-ma-ki! Löy-dä-kö mi-nun pik-ku ket-tu-ni? Se me-ni pii-loon
and 2014: Mo-ko-ma-ki! Löy-dät-kö rai-ta-ni? Jo-ku vei ne.

"Mokomaki" word is used when some one is not being so nice. "Accursed" is to strong, this is more endearing. In some cases, you might use just "That dog!". This remind me the movie "Some like it hot" Dolores saying to Joe "Why you..!" When he asked what she was doing that evening and then asked to borrow her car, when she had no plans for the evening. Any way these two books are delicious colors and cute animals. As an adult reader the hyphenation is a little distrubing, but not much.

Not all the animals are typically Finnish (ie. the zebra and the monkey), but I especially like fox and rowan berries. The Aesop fable about the grapes being sour is in Finnish: "Happamia, sanoi kettu pihlajanmarjoista kun ei niihin yltänyt", which translates: "Sour, said the fox about rowan berries, not being able to reach them". Of course the pie that is missing a piece resembles Carelian pie.

Some one bit off a piece of  reindeer's pie

The first Mokomaki! -book is a giant size picture book full of silly animals. The beach balls, reindeer's antlers and other stuff goes missing. One gets its toes wet, some one bites off a piece of pie. It is left to the reader to solve these little mysteries. The kids love to look for the small details that are hidden in a pattern of different animals.

Second, smaller Mokomaki! book cover

In the second smaaller book, zebra has lost his stripes, a fox has lost his berries and a bear his woolly sleeping hat. Where as in the first book the spread had only one animal, in this second book the spread is filled with different animals. From spread to spread the places of the animals are changed and there fore finding the missing items takes longer.

Some one has taken bears wooly sleeping hat.

Fox is looking for lost berries.