The Scale

Oona is angry. She’s so furious that she walks into the lake with all of her clothes on and swims farther than she ever has before – over to the other side. The water scrapes against her strangely, and she gets a deep cut.

On the opposite shore, the landscape has changed and the people seem slightly odd, and no one has a mobile phone. A flying lizard? A mind-reader? People living in sheds? Daylight scares them? When Oona starts working in a shoe factory, she understands that some kind of evil is enveloping the whole village. Why won’t anyone talk about it?

The Scale is a youth novel that flits as smoothly as a lizard from one time, and one reality, to another. It ladles out a mixture of recent history, vampire stories, and pure fantasy. What if the world was just the tiniest bit different – by a cat’s whisker or the width of a lizard’s scale?


The Servant of Dusk

Kaarina didn’t hesitate when Valeri asked her: – Will you come with me? I’m going to leave everything behind and start a new life.
The Servant of Dusk takes place in a world familiar from Sari Peltoniemi’s earlier fantasy novel, The Scale. Kaarina’s and Valeri’s ballad-like love story is intertwined with a fascinating alternative history and the timeless charm of fantasy – and with Jesse, whose game has turned into reality.


Cat Taxi

One day in August a boy is searching for adventures in the neighbor’s garden. The window is slightly ajar and the boy listens how Granny is talking to her cats. All of a sudden one of the cats junps onto the window sill. The Cat lifts his paw against the window and meows a little. In the same moment Granny yells: – What did you say, Domino? Who is there?


Rights sold:
POLAND, W.A.B.


Gattonautti and Other Everyday Tales

Everyday life is full of magic. All you have to do to see it is look closely enough.

Heather is caring for a grave, the final resting place for little Anna from long ago. Heather ponders what Anna’s life was like. Meanwhile, Raoul and Rod are trying to figure out where they can get the money they need for this one really important thing. Thom comes across a strange bottlecollector. And Jack meets a mysterious water-cat, who talks big about building a spaceboat. Who on earth danced on the kitchen table last night with muddy shoes? And what does it feel like to be a stone?

Sari Peltoniemi’s everyday tales are composed of the joys and sorrows of the young, their finest moments and their gray days, too. They are about you, me, and Tuva from next door. Liisa Kallio’s sensitive illustrations are a fine complement to the tales’ wonderful ambiance.

 


Dog and Her Girl

Sari Peltoniemi mixes fairytale and reality creating a hilarious story where the usual situations are turned upside-down and inside-out.

Kerppu is a small black dog. She has lovely parents and a nice home but she is not exactly happy. She wants her own pet! All her friends have pets so why should she be any different. Kerppu whinges for so long that her parents give in: they give Kerppu a girl as a pet. Whopee! But now Kerppu needs to learn how to look after it…

Sometimes the combined living arrangements in the households with dogs and humans can be complicated. This goes for Kerppu, too: she gets into a lot of trouble and even in danger with her girl. But even then it is absolutely clear that they belong together. And in the end it doesn’t even matter who owns who.


Rights sold:
JAPAN, Bunke Shuppan
GERMANY, Carl Hanser
POLAND, W.A.B.


The Elven Son

A magnificient sequel to I Hear the Forest Calling.

The Elven Son is a mesmerizing story about the importance of finding one’s roots and a reminder of the significance of friends and family.
About to start high school, Jouni is still pondering where his mother is. Together with his sister, Saara, he tries to find the place where he was born, hoping to find a way to his mother. Jouni has a falling-out with his girlfriend and downs a bottle of wine right before his band is about to go on stage. Later, Jouni ignores the warnings of his teacher and goes out on the night of Halloween, only to find himself followed by the dead. Can his sister save him? And will they find their mother?


I Hear the Forest Calling

Nominated for the Topelius Prize 2012: A gripping tale that sweeps the reader along.

After a trip to Lapland, Jouni is confused to start with. Why does a skinny, tree-hugging woman appear in front of him both on the fells of Lapland and in the outskirts of his home town? Is he imagining it all – why does no one else see the woman? But when Jouni is on his way to a music shop with his best mate Mikko to buy a guitar, something happens to give him a profound scare.

‘I reckon what’s happened is that you’re being pursued by a spirit,’ says Romppainen when Jouni confides in his former teacher. ‘What I cannot tell you is why it’s happened and what it wants from you.’ Romppainen takes a thick volume called Mythical Tales down from the shelf.
‘This is not a tale,’ Jouni blurts out. This is real.’
‘Calm down. Sometimes fact and fiction are not as far apart as is generally thought.’

Jouni’s mother, a Koltta Sami, vanished when Jouni was little. Ever since, he has lived with his father and his sister Saara. Are the mysterious events somehow connected with his mother, is she under the spell of the forest magic or what has happened to her?  The eagle owl, which has settled down in Jouni’s garden, could probably answer if you could understand it.

Jouni begins to get to the bottom of the mystery with his friend Mikko. He is helped by the membership register of a Lapp community and Romppainen, the charismatic teacher who taught Jouni throughout his time at the primary school.

In addition to supernatural events, Jouni gets into a spin because of natural events. Romppainen’s daughter Matleena is at the same school and first love hits him like a sledgehammer. Fear and love, secrets and reality transform his life.


Wattenborg

The Key Keeper Trilogy, Book III

No one has ever drowned in the Reed Lake, but now villagers are falling through its ice. Underneath the surface, a world of its own reveals itself. But what has the clam of Wattenborg to tell to Oliver?


Subterra

The Key Keeper Trilogy, Book II

The people of Little Reed must help the citizens of the underground world Subterra! The world of the tiny, gentle gnomies has fallen under the tyrannical rule of someone called Obergoblin.


Heavensky

The Key Keeper Trilogy, Book I

Miranda, Vera, and Oliver end up in an adventure that changes their lives and the way they see people of their home village – there’s more than what meets the eye in the town of Little Reed.

One August day a strange flock appears in the sky. Among the regular northern birds colorful parrots and budgies carry a basket in which a petite blue-clad lady called Opri travels with her dogs Fnannel and Flamp and her skycat Natalia. She has arrived from a place called Heavenzky to Little Reed in search of her son.

It turns out Little Reed is a gateway between three worlds, and in the village lives a key keeper, who can cross these borders. Miranda and her friends start to investigate.

Who is the key keeper? And who has kidnapped Opri’s son? Why are the children of the village falling ill, and why is their school’s headmaster getting increasingly bad-tempered? What secrets lie in the tower of the school house?