Nature in the Nordics

 

Nordic Literature Week 2022 invites you to read aloud on the theme of nature in the Nordics. The love and attitude to our Nordic nature is something that permeates our culture and takes a large place in nordic stories and literary tradition. The Nordic nature is not only something that unites us, but also tells us something about the diversity and richness that exists in our dark corner of the Earth. The recently closed borders have meant that we have no longer been able to travel to tropical beaches, but instead have had to dig where we stand. From volcanoes in the west, ice glaciers in the north, yellow rapeseed fields in the south to a thousand lakes in the east. The relationship between nature and man is central to this year's read-aloud books.

The picture book If you meet a bear is a collaboration between Finnish-Swedish Malin Kivelä and Linda Bondestam with Danish Martin Glaz Serup. The book is nominated for the Nordic Council's Children and Young Peoples' Literature Prize 2022. The book is based on the title's question of what to do if you meet a bear, both in an educational but above all a parodic way. The book treats the issue of nature as an idyllic place where city dwellers can go out with the mushroom basket in full swing, but also asks the question of how wild nature really gets to be?

This year, the adult readers can enjoy the book The Gospel of the Eels: A Father, a Son and the World's Most Enigmatic Fish by the Swedish author Patrik Svensson. It is a book about how the eel brings a son and his father together and about how the mystery of the eel can be compared to man. It is a story about origin, destiny, how life should be lived and the inevitable and unmanageable death.