The Beast

A masterful YA novel about power, courage, and the beasts around us

✓ By juxtaposing bullying and animal rights the novel seems to ask: how realistic is it to combat the abuse of power in one place if it is simultaneously permitted in another?
✓ Sanna Isto is a two-time winner of the Arvid Lydecken award (2012 & 2017) and has been nominated twice for the Finlandia Prize (2017 & 2023), Topelius Prize and Young Aleksis Award in (2019 & 2024)
✓ In the original Finnish edition Pixi's gender is left undefined to encourage readers to reflect their own assumptions

What do you do when you know, but are too afraid to intervene?

Pixi moves out from their home to start school in a new environment. Very soon, they notice that although the school is new, the problems are the same. Bullies circle around a nice classmate and no-one seems to notice anything. How can one intervene when one is afraid of becoming bullied as well? Pixi pours their emotions into murals that they make on the school courtyard at night. But after each night, a new morning dawns and none of their murals have remained unchanged. Is someone making fun of them? Is someone secretly watching them from the shadows?

Pixi becomes even more careful. They identify with the fox that roams the area hoping that like the fox, Pixi too, could survive by avoiding dangers. However, when the fox’s instinct also fails one day, Pixi realizes that time has come to step forward.