The Second Heart by Ida Hegazi Høyer

The Second Heart is a warm and honest story about being someone's next of kin – about alienation and longing for freedom.

Ever since she was a child, she has been preparing for her father's weak heart to stop. She doesn't want to be there when it happens, but she's also afraid every time he leaves the house, or the country. Ever since she was a child, she has thought don't go don't go don't go. Her Egyptian father almost dies, time and time again. And when she has become an adult, he needs her in new ways.

What responsibility do you have as a child, as offspring? Father and daughter travel between different countries, and swivel between closeness and distance. Does it have to do with their cultures, Egyptian and Norwegian, or is it who they are?

Born Free by Marta Breen & Sunniva Fluge Hole

Religious control and women's fight for freedom – an important book for young readers

Born Free is a fascinating and thought-provoking graphic novel about the impact religion has had, and continues to have, on women's freedom. It explores how religious practices have restricted women’s rights and shaped their lives across different cultures and societies.

In the wake of the women-led uprising in Iran and the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, religious control over women’s lives has become more visible than it has been in decades. Acclaimed feminist and author Marta Breen places these current events in a broader historical and global context, showing how religious fundamentalism continues to threaten women’s rights even in Western societies.

A Year of Birds by Torbjørn Ekelund

Sometimes you discover something new, or see something familiar in a new way. The space expands. The world gets bigger. A curtain is pulled aside, and you see into a parallel universe.

With these words, a journey begins. Not across continents, but into the small things that surrounds us. When epilepsy forced journalist and amateur ornithologist Torbjørn Ekelund to abandon his plans for a globe-spanning bird book, his world shrank to the local woods of Maridalen, his garden, and a small cabin by the sea. But in that shrinking, something expanded.

Told through a series of diary entries over the course of a year, A Year of Birds follows Ekelund’s growing awareness of the birds around him. At the beginning of the year, he knows almost nothing about birds. By the end of the year, he knows a little more. He watches blackbirds and bullfinches, observes gulls and geese, and lets the ordinary transform into the extraordinary through simple, sustained attention.

This is a book about birds but also about perception, limitation, and the beauty of staying still. It is about discovering nature not in far-off landscapes, but right where you are. With warmth, humour, and a quiet existential undertone, A Year of Birds invites us to look more closely, live more attentively and see the world anew.

Blood by Torgrim Eggen

What makes two teenage brothers from a small village in Norway, enlist in Waffen-SS?

Oddmund and Sigurd grow up in a small Norwegian village in the 1930s, surrounded by competing ideologies and political tensions. Dark clouds loom over the valley. Europe is on the brink of war, and soon everyone must choose a side. The brothers align themselves with the Germans in the fateful struggle against Stalin.

At just seventeen years old, they both become soldiers in Waffen-SS. While Oddmund fights at Leningrad, Sigurd is sent to Finland. They survive the war, but when they return to a liberated Norway, they must face the consequences of their choices. How will their lives unfold? And what marks do they leave on their descendants and family?

In the novel’s final part, the author himself steps forward—as their nephew and descendant—in an attempt to understand the legacy of Sigurd and Oddmund. The result is a novel of moral gravity, linguistic precision, and emotional force.

Blood is a story about heroes and traitors, the dream of honour and the nightmares that follow, and it portrays a time that bears an unsettling resemblance to our own.

My Life as a Cat by Elin Hansson

On her 11th birthday, Katja gets more than she bargained for when she wishes she were a cat. The next morning, she wakes up with four paws, whiskers, and a tail – she has switched bodies with her beloved cat, Kitty!

But life as a cat in Lion Hill is far more dangerous than Katja imagined. All summer, cats have been disappearing from the neighbourhood. Is there a cat-catcher on the loose? Or something even worse – a cat killer?

Together with her best friend Carl-Otto and Kitty (now stuck in Katja’s body), Katja must solve the mystery before she becomes the next victim. But how do you investigate a feline crime spree when your mum is a busy mayor, your dad a distracted brain surgeon, and your older sister only cares about social media?

My Life as a Cat is a magical yet down-to-earth story, filled with humour, heart and suspense. With striking illustrations by Oda Valle, the book takes readers on an adventure that combines the warmth of Astrid Lindgren with the whimsical imagination of Roald Dahl.