Pea soup fog

Tapani Bage 2010: Tahvo ja Bella hernerokkasumussa
illustrated by Salla Savolainen

Tahvo is a cat, who thinks he is a siberian tiger, Bella is a dog, who live on an island. One autumn day the fog is so thick, we Finns would call it pea soup fog. Tahvo and Bella collect drift wood from the shore.  The fog is cold and Tahvo wants to catch it and taste it. Does it taste like pea soup?

Suddenly they catch a penguin! He is Pablo and he wants to go back home to the Antarctic. Tahvo and Bella help him to find a vessel to get there.

The weather is always a good toppic to talk about. Usually the weather is too cold or rainy. On some rare occation we complain about the heat. The peasoup fog is where I live quite rare.  What I like about this book, is the cat who thinks he is something he is not and everyone else is ok with it and the mystique the fog brings and finally the helping others.

Tahvo is trying to get some of that pea suop.

Sami the dog chasing the big eater

Tapani Bagge 2008: Sami Hurtta suursyömärin jäljillä
illustrated by Jari Rasi


Sami the dog is a detective, who lost his sock. While trying to find him, he bumps into a big eater, who ate a wall of a gingerbread house. All kinds of strange things have gone missing and Sami has a real riddle in his hands. Luckily he has Jasmine, a small girl to help him out.

Finnish people read a lot of detective stories, especially from other Nordic countries. It is no wonder that the genre can be found in the children's section as well. Naturally the stories are not as grim as those for adults.

Constable Muddy and the mystery of bunnies

Tapani Bagge 2011: Konstaapeli Mutanen ja kanien arvoitus
Illustrated by Jusa Hämäläinen

Constable Muddy feels a little lonely and his neighbor suggest he gets a bunny. At first everything is fine, but then the bunny seems lonely. Constable Muddy gets another girl bunny, or so he thinks. Soon there are several bunnies more.

Constable Muddy also trained his bunnies to track and they solve many crimes together. I didn't  quite understand the mystery part. Is it how the bunnies breed? Cute story and my son found this very interesting and short enough for him to read.

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.