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.

Jellona

Jellona, the Great -cover

Anne Vasko:
Jellona Suuri (Jellona, the Great) 2010
Jellona Toinen (Jellona, the Second) 2012


Two great books about a soft toy Jellona, who has issues. The illustrations are made of  textile collages. In Jellona the Great, Jellona fears of not being enough and in Jellona, the Second, he fears that he will be left out. Issues that everyone deals with some time.

Jellona Suuri
Jellona is a small lion made of fabric. Every one thinks he looks like a home made cat, but Boy thinks Jellona is the king of lions.

Jellona does not like being left out.

But Boy grows up and Jellona hates games, which do not include him. He wonders, if he is to small to take part in those games. He wants to grow bigger. He starts to eat more, but what if he does not grow enough? He decides to grow a bigger mane. Maybe his color is too childish? Maybe he should be yellow or golden brown.

Girl finds him and wants to keep him. Jellona sees a princess and half a kingdom, after all he is related to lions

Jellona, the Second - cover

Jellona Toinen
Jellona has two friends, Hirvonen and Pii.They play together, but sometimes the blanket is too small and they start fighting. Then everything is said in CAPITAL LETTERS and words become stupid, dorky.

When there are no words left, start the pillowfight and wrestling and someone gets hurt. Jellona's tail gets a hit. What if it cannot be fixed? Nobody will play with him any more and some other lion comes along. But Jellona is the cutest soft toy lion ever.

Jellona, Hirvonen and Pii fight over a blanket

Jellona starts looking for his friends and wants to find the right words. Words do not mend the tail, but they help. Hirvonen and Pii help fix the tail