The Logbook of Love

What’s love all about?

In her unique Finnish voice, award-winning author Elina Hirvonen has written a heartfelt and unforgettable novel about everything we love. In The Logbook of Love, conversations about love form a sea of connections among people from different backgrounds and places.

The narrator meets with friends and strangers, moves between the past and the present, shifts from country to country. Everywhere she goes, she talks with others about love: romantic love, the love for justice and human rights, marital love, the love of parents for children, the love that can bind friends from different cultures and backgrounds – and the love that, no matter how powerful it is, sometimes fails to bridge the gaps between people.

The individuals she encounters, and the love stories they tell, leave their mark on the narrator. Her reflections on what she has heard and experienced portray a world that’s heating up too quickly as it slips into conflict and violence, but where everyone still continues to search for meaning, hope and joy.


When Time Runs Out

Helsinki, less than a decade in the future. Laura Anttila is lecturing at the university on climate change, hope, and the responsibility of humans. In the hallway, she is confronted by two police officers.

Laura’s daughter Aava encounters a woman who has just lost her daughter in a Somalian village. Having returned to her apartment, Laura hears that someone is shooting at people from the rooftop of the Lasipalatsi building in Helsinki.

When Time Runs Out is a powerful novel about parenthood, about finding your place, and about the responsibility of people to intervene in the course of events.


The Rescuers Julia and Charlie

Toy Story meets The Avengers in this exciting 3-book series where plush animals have super powers.

  • Realistic worries for young children are combined with sci-fi elements and a superhero adventure story!

The Plush Animal League and their secret plush animal agents are there for children in need! But what if one of their own needs help?

Twelve-year-old Julia is spending more and more time with her friends, and Nis, the plush animal agent, is feeling lonely. Nis is haunted by memories of his childhood spent as an abandoned and misfit toy on a store shelf, until he became Julia’s friend. Many of the other top fluffy agents of the World Council of Stuffed Animals also feel unneeded. The World Council gets a bunch of therapy alpacas to help the depressed agents, but will help arrive before it’s too late?

A toy manufacturer invites Nis to join him and leave the World Council once and for all. When Julia realises her stuffed animal is gone, she decides to stop time. She doesn’t want to grow up, if growing up means parting ways with her childhood best friend, plush animal agent Nis.

Julia and Charlie are determined to uncover the true identity of the Toy manufacturer. As the children grow old, is it possible for them to keep the most important things from their childhood?


Princess Rascal and the Quarrel Spell

Which spell is the best when it seems that the parents do not have enough time for themselves? Resourceful Princess Rascal has a solution to every problem!
When Mom looks like a red-eyed panda and Dad like an angry troll, and they snap at each other without any reason, it’s time for some Rascal spells and Onni’s insights. The solution is the world’s finest KISSING BOOTH.

“You have to go in there to kiss. Then you will  love again. And never quarrel again. And we don’t have to move to Flower’s.”

Everybody quarrels once in a while, no need to be scared of it. The difficult topic of the book never becomes too gloomy, because the solution-oriented Princess Rascal takes action. Mervi Lindman’s delicate and colorful illustrations also maintain positivity.

Turun Sanomat newspaper


Charlie and the Wombat Warriors

How to help someone who does not want to be helped?

Charlie, aged 11, is more interested in hairstyles, fashion, music and skateboarding than focusing on school.   Things get difficult when Charlie’s parents divorce and his mother, who has found a new family, leaves Charlie to stay with his dad.

Charlie´s plush monkey Mung Kee, a talented member of the Plush Animal League (P.A.L.), sees his misery and tries to help. But Mung Kee´s attempts are disturbed by the Gang President who is actively looking for a child to join his ranks to work as an undercover agent.

Julia and her plush toy agent Buck come to help and join Mung Kee in his mission to show Charlie the fatal consequences of letting his pain turn into anger.


Julia & P.A.L.

Toy Story meets The Avengers! The first part of the new exciting middle-grade series where plush animals have super powers.

Illustrations by Nadja Sarell

More than anything else, Julia, 10 years, wishes that somebody would like her. She can explain the structure of the universe, but has no idea how to talk to her classmates. What she doesn’t know is that she already has her very own best friend – her toy bunny Buck, who in reality is a top secret agent of the Plush Animal League (P.A.L.).

The P.A.L. headquarters is located in outer space where the agents follow children through their monitor, ready to act immediately when their child needs help. And Julia does! Buck turns Julia’s bed into a magic flying spacecraft and takes her on a ride through space and time. Buck wants to show Julia that the same things that make her feel out of place among her classmates now, are her unique character strengths that will make her happy and loved in the future. But the P.A.L. has an enemy; the Soldiers of Vombat, an army of forgotten toys. They plot to overtake Plush Animal League and control children’s actions and wishes. Julia finds out that she is the only one who can stop the evil plan!

 


Princess Rascal and the Potty Words

Princess Rascal is a spirited and resourceful little girl, like the kid sister of Pippi Longstocking.

BOOK 2: PRINCESS RASCAL AND THE POTTY WORDS
Princess Rascal starts pre-school. She’s nervous about her new mates and new teacher. Especially nervous she is about going to the toilet. When she uses toilet words in a completely wrong situation, she’s sure that she is the most embarrassing girl in the world. But a solution for the problem can be found in her secret treasure chest.


Rights sold:

FINLAND: Tammi (orig.)
DENMARK: Gads forlag


Red Storm

As a small boy grows up in Iraq ruled by Saddam Hussein, fear is always present. His father is part of an underground opposition movement that tries to overthrow the dictator. The father ends up spending years in prison, and the boy learns that just one wrong word can put his life in danger.
The family escapes to melancholy Finland, a country recovering from financial depression. It is a safe country, but the boy grows up with mixed feelings: can one be a good Muslim and a good Finnish boy? When ISIS in rising in Iraq, the boy returns to his home country as a peace negotiator, hoping to build a county where his children can travel safely to one day.


Princess Rascal

Princess Rascal is a spirited and resourceful little girl, like the kid sister of Pippi Longstocking!

You would think that Rascal is a just a little girl, but she’s also a princess with many crowns for different purposes: one for Important Thoughts, one for Great Adventures, one for Peaceful Dreams. When Mom gets mad at her, she must find the right crown to calm Mom down.

Princess Rascal is a picture book about a little girl who knows her mind and has a heart of gold, though sometimes it’s difficult to know the right thing to do. The book has been praised for its accurate and hilarious depictions of everyday life in a toddler family: sometimes parents get tired, too.


Rights sold:

FINLAND: Tammi (orig.)
DENMARK: Gads forlag
LITHUANIA: Nieko rimto