Maija Hurme's Kaikki löytämäni viimeiset candidate for the Nordic Council's Children's and Youth Literature Prize

Rationale:

'Maija Hurme’s picture book Kaikki löytämäni viimeiset (Last and Found, not published in English) is a fine-tuned and multi-layered work of art and a picture-book-based game that challenges the child reader to observe the world around them with new eyes. Its main theme is the things that are the last in life – the moments when something becomes the last, when something is experienced for the last time, or when the last time is yet to come.

At first glance, it looks like a photo album offering glimpses of important moments in a child’s life. Little by little, however, the individual moments begin to merge into a cohesive and philosophical journey through the child’s world of experiences, which takes the last nappy or the last piece of chocolate no less seriously as the last night sleeping between mum and dad.

The work comes together into a whole that is striking, funny, sad, and calm, its form being part of the narrative and the story. The moments in a child’s life, captured here in words and images, are reminiscent of visual poems that allow wide-ranging interpretation. Life begins to reveal itself as an assemblage of fleeting everyday situations and transformative moments whose significance becomes apparent only later. Alla mina sistahelps the child to understand and interpret the varied, ambivalent feelings that are the inevitable companion of growing up, and it does so with amazing sensitivity and insight, and with deep respect for the child.

It breaks with traditional picture book writing in that it gives many types of readers, child and adult alike, an opportunity to find themselves. Through the nuanced strokes of a watercolour brush and pencil, a picture gallery is created that entices the reader to carry on and fill in the stories with their own memories and experiences. The illustrations and text blend together into a seamless whole that makes you want to come back to the book again and again, with something new appearing every time.*

Maija Hurme (b. 1976), who has illustrated several picture books, poetry books, school books and information books for children, lives in Helsinki. Maija's first book, Yksinäisten saarten kartasto, was published by Etana Editions in 2018. Maija has also been nominated for the Finlandia Junior award in 2018. Kaikki löytämäni viimeiset is Maija's second work, for which she has made both the text and the illustrations. It was originally published in Finnish by Etana Editions, and the Swedish translation by Schildts & Söderströms.

Kaikki löytämäni viimeiset 
Written and illustrated by Maija Hurme
Published by Etana Editions, 2022
ISBN: 978-952-7105-87-0
Pages 40 
Age 3+

14 Nordic picture books, children's books and novels for young people are aiming for the 2023 children's and young people's literature prize of the Nordic Council. There are works from the entire Nordic region, from all countries and from all language areas.

The works examine new family structures, inspire the reader to look at the world with new eyes, and describe the friendship between children that defies language barriers and established operating models. The candidates are timeless and pro-life adventures, where diversity is not the actual message of the story, but a fact that strengthens its credibility.