Author and illustrator Kaia Dahle Nyhus is nominated for the most prestigious literary award in the Nordic for her picture book Something Lost and Something Found. The book addresses current and difficult topics like war, flight and reconciliation.
Dahle Nyhus is an award-winning author and illustrator, and this is her second time being nominated to the prize. In 2014 she was nominated with her mother, author Gro Dahle, for the picture book The War which Dahle Nyhus illustrated.
Something Lost and Something Found
A powerful and highly topical picture book about war, flight, change and reconciliation.
In the beginning, there is a house with blue window frames. There is a mum and a dad, a cushion, a grandmother, a school, a cat on the step and a secret chocolate drawer. But there is also war. There are bombs and uniforms and grownups talking in whispers, and the war will change everything. Soon almost everything is gone. The chocolate drawer and the cat, the cushion and Grandmother, the school and even Dad. Now there are new things. There are queues and cold draughts and a house that isn’t a home. There are people who talk strangely and food that tastes weird. But there are also children who play. And a cat on the step who may become a friend.
Something Lost and Something Found is a powerful story about having to abandon everything you know and put down new roots in an unfamiliar place. It’s a story that will be a great conversation-starter in schools and kindergartens, where many people meet children who have been forced to flee from war and unrest in their homelands.
«... the picture book Something Lost and Something Found is a hopeful, empathetic and very aesthetically driven story. The author does not dwell on the act of fleeing ..., but also thematises the way forward, after one has arrived in a safe place. How to establish a new everyday life, when your thoughts and memories linger on the past? Fortunately, a lot of good can be rediscovered.»
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Jury's statement
«Dahle Nyhus takes the child seriously, and has a unique ability to see the world from the child's perspective. The story is easy to follow, the child is clearly in focus. Therefore, it is a relief when the new country opens up to the possibility of hope. Even though everything is new, there is a soda that's the same as at home and a cat that might want to play. In the last spread, the child is sitting on their mother's lap. «Here is a mum who might be happy. Here is a phone with dad's voice.»
This is a strong picture book about something many children have either experienced or heard of. It is a book that depicts an important topic in a direct, yet poetic way. The illustrations soberly capture the mood of the book, and war is depicted without taking up too much space.»
The winner will be announced 21st of October.