Oili Tanninen

Originally published in Findland in 1967, and translated into English for the first time in this 2014 edition, Hippu is a simple tale about a mouse who adopts a homeless dog. Together they do a number of things - eat, play, bathe, go to bed - and the book closes as they drive along, saying "Bye bye" to the reader...

Having enjoyed the recently translated and published Button and Popper, also written by Tanninen, I immediately went in search of other books from the same author, available in English. Fortunately, my library system had a single copy of Hippu, and I immediatey requested it. The text here is quite simple - only a few words on each two-page spread - and the artwork is boldly graphic, utilizing black and red to great effect. According to the author's afterword for this new edition, the artwork was created using cut paper collage and drawing. The book itself is quite small, and was designed to fit in tiny hands. Recommended to younger children - toddlers I'd say - who want engaging and simple picture-books designed just for them, as well as to fans of Oili Tanninen's bold artwork.… (meer)

When a large family of pixies - Mother, Father and twelve little children - find that their summer home in an apple tree isn't quite the thing for winter, they must look for a new abode. Two of the pixie children - twins Button and Popper - go into the nearby town to search, only to discover that no one will rent to a family with twelve children. Fortunately, a mix-up with Professor Prilli's market basket leads the pixie brothers to a solution that works for everybody...

Originally published in 1964 as Nappi ja Neppari, and presented in English for the first time this year (2019), this classic Finnish picture-book was written, according to the author's foreword for this new edition, when Oili Tanninen was searching for an apartment in Helsinki, in the fall of 1963. It is a sweet and gentle tale, one which presents a real world problem - finding a home for a large family - in a magical, fairy-tale fashion. The artwork, which utilizes only three colors of ink, is charming, full of bold shapes and amusingly expressive details. Recommended to young children who enjoy stories about diminutive magical people - brownies, fairies, elves, pixies - and to anyone who appreciates the simpler, more graphic illustration styles of previous decades.… (meer)