Monster Message

Tuutikki Tolonen

Original title: Mörköviesti

Author: Tuutikki Tolonen

Illustrator: Pasi Pitkänen

Published: 2020

Publisher: Tammi

Genre: Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Pages: 300

Part of a series: Monster Nanny trilogy

Reading material:

English sample & synopsis

German edition

Mary Poppins meets Where the Wild Things Are in this prize-winning series.

An international bestseller with a Hollywood Film in development

Hellman kids face new troubles. Mom and Dad want to move into a bigger home on the other side of the city. Mimi’s talking bathrobe feels strangely shrunk, and drops hints of leaving. Monstrologist Runar Kalli is starting to act his age without his rejuvenating root potion – and he’s 122. Something must be done. When Mimi finds crumpled leaves with strange markings in her room, they look like messages from underground, but who’s delivering them and why? And why does the Gatekeeper of the underground world appear in their bathroom?

This time the adventures take place in home neighbourhood and school. In fact, these school-based monster scenes were, I think, the most fun of the whole book. /.../ Monster Nanny was a wonderful read. A good-natured, imaginative, a little exciting and in some places quite profound story, I think, is also perfect for an adult reader.

Oksan hyllyltä blog, Finland

Download reading materials

Rights sold:
FINLAND: Tammi (orig.)

ALBANIA: Westprint
BULGARIA: Robertino
CHINA: Beijing Publishing Group Co., Ltd.
CZECH REPUBLIC: Portál, s. r. o.
GERMANY: Carl Hanser Verlag GmbH & CO. KG.
JAPAN: SEKAIBUNKA Publishing
ROMANIA: Editura Univers SRL
RUSSIA: Rosman
Seosawon Co., Ltd.
UKRAINE: School Publishing House

Video

Foreign covers

About author

Tuutikki Tolonen

Tuutikki Tolonen is the author of several acclaimed children’s books, plays and academic articles. She teaches creative writing and has worked as an editor and reporter at Vinski, a Finnish literary magazine for children. For Monster Nanny she received the Arvid Lydecken award.  Her inspiration for the Monster Nanny trilogy sparked during a family breakfast. “My son Leo, then six, said: ‘I heard on the radio yesterday that all moms have to go on vacation and monsters will take their places,” she says.

Her other bestselling series is the Agnes-series, of which the first book "Agnes and the Garden of Dreams" was in 2021 nominated for the Arvid Lydecken Award, received an honorable mention for the Runeberg Junior Award, and won the Luku Varkaus Award. Tolonen tells that the inspiration for Agnes comes for her interest for weird and inexpicable tales, ghost stories and mysteries: "I wanted to write a book my daughter Aili, then nine, would like to read - not too long, not too scary, but very curious."

Bibliography


2024, Picture Books (0-3 Years)

Tuutikki Tolonen

The Secret Ones


2022, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Tuutikki Tolonen

Agnes and the Shadow in the Window


2021, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Tuutikki Tolonen

Agnes and the Mysterious Manor


2020, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Tuutikki Tolonen

Monster Message


2020, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Tuutikki Tolonen

Agnes and the Garden of Dreams


2016, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Tuutikki Tolonen

Monster Route


2015, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Tuutikki Tolonen

Monster Nanny