Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Auringon lapsia
[Children of the sun]
Kuvitus [Ill. by]: Inari Krohn
Helsinki: Teos, 2011. 32 p.
ISBN 978-951-851-311-0
€ 29.40, hardback

It is great news that Leena Krohn has not abandoned the young readership she first addressed through her first book Vihreä vallankumous (‘The green revolution’, 1970), an ecocritical title that also touched on active citizenship. This novel, too, is about the encounter between man and nature. Ten-year-old Orvokki (Violet) is a delivery girl for a florist; like her, the reader is incited to marvel with naive curiosity at life’s various wonders. Krohn is supremely good at writing literature that knows no age limits. Nothing here will go over a child’s head; the essence of the book is accessible to all. In this nicely old-fashioned children’s novel the measured language and expression are pleasing both to the eye and the ear. The hand-coloured graphic prints by the artist (and writer’s sister) Inari Krohn are a homage to Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), the German natural scientist and illustrator who produced life-like paintings of insects and plants.
Translated by Fleur Jeremiah and Emily Jeremiah