The New Charlotta Book: Teddy Bears, a Land Grab and Your Child's Name Inside
Anna wrote a book. It has teddy bears and a corporate land grab. It's for ages six to ten and arguably some adults.
Charlotta ja seikkailu Nallemaassa is the second Charlotta novel from Anna Kurkijärvi-Willans. She co-founded Ink Tank Media. She is also the reason I'm in Finland at all and the person who checks whether the Finnish in these posts is actually Finnish. The book is published by Myllylahti and written in Finnish. The story picks up where book one ended. Charlotta's teddy Nana can fly and talk and has just been made the Teddy Queen's official envoy. This turns out to be less of an honour than it sounds.
Nana delivers the big news at 23:30. Charlotta's parents are not to be woken.
The trouble is in Nallemaa where every soft toy is born. A theme park called Teddylandia is being built on top of the bears' homes. The bears themselves have been put to work digging the foundations. Charlotta gets pulled in to sort it out. It's a story about courage and friendship and standing up to things bigger than you. The shorthand would be a little Dahl and a little Lindgren. We're biased. The librarians further down are not.
The Teddylandia site. Note the supervision.
Where lost toys end up. Charlotta takes the conveyor.
The illustrations are by Sami Saramäki. If you went to school in Finland you've probably held his work without knowing it. He has drawn for Finnish school books and children's publishers for years. The Charlotta books show why they keep calling. These are proper pencil and wash pictures you stop reading to look at. The hardback is built to survive nightly use.
Worth knowing before you buy: Finnish librarians picked the first Charlotta book for the school reading diploma. That's the official list of what six to ten year olds should read at school. In a country this serious about literacy that is not a small thing. The Turku Book Fair invited Anna and liked it enough to invite her back. This year the Helsinki Book Fair has asked her too. The reviews were the sort you keep:
"Pieni lukupiirimme tykkäsi tästä vauhdikkaasta ja hivenen jännästäkin tarinasta todella paljon!"
@melissakahvilla
"Tosi sympaattinen ja taidokkaasti rakennettu lasten seikkailu."
@kirsimariahyt
"Kirjan konsepti on nerokas yhdistäessään lapsen ja aikuisen iltasatuhetken ja lapsen kiintymyksen unileluun."
Lastenkirjahylly blog
"Ja kyllä aikuislukijallakin on tämän parissa mukavaa."
Yöpöydän kirjat blog
If your Finnish is rusty they say it's fast paced and cleverly built and fun for adults too. We agree but we would.
If you're raising a Finnish-speaking child abroad you'll know the real problem isn't finding Finnish books. It's finding ones a child asks for again. This is Anna's second attempt at solving that. Going by what happened to book one at bedtime in our house it works.
The part the big shops can't do
Anna signs every copy that leaves our shelf. Want the book dedicated to your child? Add their name in the order notes at checkout and she'll write the omistuskirjoitus by hand. It costs nothing and turns a book into the kind of thing that's still on a shelf in thirty years. Adlibris cannot help you here.
Charlotta ja seikkailu Nallemaassa
Signed hardback · €25.99 · Ships from Helsinki
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