The Ahlback Agency CHILDREN’S & YA Spring 2024 Rights Guide!

We are thrilled to present our Children’s & YA Catalogue for Spring 2024: creative picture books about secret creatures, middle-grade novels about pranks and friendship, and stories about outsiderness.

We’ve picked some of the hottest titles from the catalogue for you – check them out below!

View the Spring 2024 Children’s Catalogue here!

The Secret Ones

Tuutikki Tolonen, illustrated by Anne Vasko

Unleash your creativity and discover the creatures who live right next to you in secret! 

This charming picture book invites its readers to play a game: could there be secret creatures, living side by side with humans in ordinary homes? They leave signs to those who know where and how to look.

Why are there crumbs on the kitchen floor? Perhaps you have a crumbscraper living with you! The creature itself is so shy, you can rarely see it. How about the holes in your socks; did you know they might be the result of a lintbug?
And when the remote control is lost again, maybe the amnesianos have stolen it.

PRANKENSTEIN

Kaisa Paasto, illustrated by Mari Ahokoivu

If you could become a prank legend at school, is it worth going for it at any costs? This highly illustrated, bold story encourages even the most reluctant reader to keep on turning the pages!

✓  For fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid

The fifth grader Elmeri has never seriously considered a career as a prankster. But he manages to do a superbly great prank – completely accidentally. Elmeri’s cousin Robin thinks his chance has come and becomes Elmeri’s Personal Prankster Trainer. With his coaching, Elmeri will be the amazing Prankenstein and his best prank will be remembered by future generations!

Elmeri realizes that pranks may be a good opportunity to impress Mima, who lives on the same street and is quite OK. The pranks also help when Leo, the bully at school, needs to be dealt with. But when a planned prank involves a famous magician and the president of Finland, Elmeri has to ask himself: can you take it too far?

The Secret Staircase

Salla Simukka, illustrated by JP Ahonen

What would you do if you found a secret room in your house? 

✓  Grounded fantasy with a classic feel for fans of Michael Ende and Maria Gripe

An exciting and touching novel about two boys, who live in the same house but in different realities. Can their friendship cross the border separating two worlds?

10-year-old Alexis’ family moves to a house where he gets the attic room. Another 10-year-old-boy, Max, moves to a house, where a great basement room is waiting for him. Soon the boys notice something weird in their houses: Alexis hears voices under the floor, even though they don’t have a basement. Max’s ears pick up someone playing an instrument from the attic, even though no one is there.

When the two boys finally meet, they realize that they can visit each other’s worlds at night time. But will their friendship endanger everything when the worlds start to blur into each other?

The Invisibles

Sanna Isto

A haunted house. An Invisible boy. A summer of mystery and self-discovery.

✓  Nominated for the Finlandia Prize 2023 and Topelius Prize 2024

Spending her vacation away from the city and her friends was not what Pii had in mind for the summer. And then even the holiday house turns out to be strange and peculiar. Who is the boy who moves around the house as if it were his own, and why can’t anyone else see him?

Pii’s experience of being an outsider turns into a strength, because she sees things that others don’t notice. Soon she finds herself in the middle of a secret that overshadows the sunny idyll of the small village. Are the thefts of vacation homes and the unsolved death that happened half a year ago related? And what does the mysterious boy in the green cap have to do with all this?

Pii has to look for answers deep below the surface, and while diving for them, she also has to face herself. A vacation Pii expected to be boring turns into a journey of self-discovery, and in the end nothing – not even the ghosts – is what it seemed at first.

SALAISET
WSOY, March 2024, 40 pp.
Age group: 3+
Reading materials: Full English text, Finnish edition

Rights sold: FINLAND: WSOY(orig.)

 

PRANKENSTEIN
Tammi, March 2024, 112 pp., b&w illustrations
Age group: 7+
Reading materials: Full English text, Finnish edition

Rights sold: FINLAND: Tammi(orig.)

 

POIKA ULLAKOLLA, POIKA KELLARISSA
Tammi, March 2024, 200 pp., b&W illustrations
Age group: 9+ years
Reading materials: English sample and synopsis, Finnish edition

Rights sold: FINLAND: Tammi (orig.)

 

NÄKYMÄTTÖMÄT
Tammi, April 2023, 293 pp.
Age group: 12+ years
Reading materials: English smaple & synopsis, Finnish edition

Rights sold: 
FINLAND: Tammi (orig.)