Children's & YA

Celebrity Gossip

Kirsti Kristoffersen

What if the person you love suddenly became the most famous person in the country?Karoline’s boyfriend is about to become the biggest popstar in the country, with opportunities lining up for him as several record labels want to sign him. Mathias is now a real pop star and Karoline gets to join him in his new world of tours, signings, release parties and interviews. She’s clinging on as much as she can, but it’s not easy to adapt to everything around Mathias’s new life. Especially not when his fans would prefer for him to be single and for Karoline not to exist. Their relationship is really put to the test when an interviewer asks Mathias whether he has a girlfriend on live TV, and he answers no. What will Karoline do? Is Mathias the same person he used to be, or is the pop star life starting to go to his head? Celebrity Gossip is the third book in a trilogy by Kirsti Kristoffersen, who probably knows more about fan culture that almost anyone else in Norway.

Celebrity Sweetheart

Kirsti Kristoffersen

What if the person you love suddenly became the most famous person in the country? Celebrity Sweetheart is the second book in a trilogy by Kirsti Kristoffersen, who probably knows more about fan culture that almost anyone else in Norway. In the second book, Mathias, Karoline’s summer boyfriend, becomes a superstar overnight. He becomes someone that everyone has an opinion about and is completely unreachable. When some private pictures leak, Karoline has to come to terms with a completely new everyday consisting of persistent fans, press, managers, TV broadcasts and attention she hasn’t asked for. Is it even possible to be with a superstar?

Like me: The first time

Anne Wisløff

How do you even have sex? What if you don’t want to have sex, while everyone else acts like it has to happen now? How do you cope if the person you like likes someone else? This book is based on the sixth season of the TV series Like me. The kids are sixteen, and it’s time for sexual education at school. Sex is a subject the teenagers pretend they know all about aand have a big interest in, but what happens when it’s time to try it out in real life with someone? Neither the experience nor the emotions around it may be as expected, and what happens when everyone else thinks they know what happened and it gets shared on social media? The vulnerability of being young and inexperienced in sexuality and love are recurring themes for the characters in this book. Like Me: The First Time is about being sixteen, about unrequited love, about being naked and scared with someone else, about exploring the scary and unknown. And about trying to like yourself when everyone else does something different. Guaranteed to cause butterflies. REVIEWS ‘Anne Wisløff’s Like Me: The First Time can be the teenager’s most lovely, awkward, but also the most important reading experience of the summer.’ ‘The novel is a thorough sexual education, which in 240 pages has time to touch upon pretty much everything about sex. Consent, contraception, fetishes, toys, rape, porn, pregnancy and so on. And everything is done on the teenagers's premises.’ BOK365, ***** ‘Anne Wisløff’s new young adult novel is a sure-fire tale of the youth’s conflicts, fears, dilemmas and loves. […] In this book everything is refreshingly up to date.’ DAGBLADET, *****

The Servant of Darkness

Anne Elvedal

After spending four months at a psychiatric instutition of youth, Martin returns to Hommelvik. He has forgotten a lot from the last few months. He also cannot reach Rebekka. Then he learns that Rebekka has disappeared, and there's a rumour she killed her cousin. Martin tries to find her, and discovers that dark, dangerous forces are ravaging the town. Who breaks the curfew and shatters his bedroom window? Who's the mystical girl he has such strange dreams of? And why can't he rid himself of the sick feeling in his chest, which makes him forget to eat? The Servant of Darkness is the final book in Anne Elvedal's paranormal horror YA trilogy.

Everything´s OK

Ebba Eiring

Backyard Dog

Magnus Buen Halvorsen

Balal is 14 and runs a YouTube channel with three pals, where they play innocent pranks on people in the street. But traffic on the channel is pretty low, and they realise they have to do something that will really attract attention. That’s when they come up with the idea of a stunt at subway station in central Oslo at rush hour on a Friday – a so-called terror challenge. Balal isn’t sure whether this is a step too far, but his friends are already in full swing, firing up the comment field and promising to livestream the action to their subs. But the terror challenge is far from successful and has an impact on Balal’s parents, who are already burdened by their traumatic experiences. Now his father is convinced that terrorism has come to Norway and that war will follow. He builds a shelter in the flat and refuses to leave it. And even when the police quickly confirm that the action subway station was just a stunt, it does no good. Because, as his father asks, who on earth would be so idiotic as to joke about something like that? Over several hectic weeks, the story from their homeland unfolds and Balal is seriously put to the test. Backyard Dog is a fast-paced YA novel about belonging and friendship, and about carrying on with life when you are burdened by difficult histories.

The Shadow Bride

Anne Elvedal

What did Rebekka and Martin set in motion with the old spirit board in their previous life? Helene's foster sister May-Liss disappears on her way back from the store. Helene blames herself, she was meant to watch her sister. To learn if May-Liss is still alive, Helene defies the warning to never use her ability to communicate with the dead – and gets thrown into a dangerous game controlled by dark forces. Who is the dead girl Helene talks to? Who is rocking the old doll bed at night? Can she trust the sheriff's son, who claims to also have special powers? And most importantly: Can Helene trust herself? The Shadow Bride is the second book in Anne Elvedal's paranormal horror trilgy.

A Different View

Erlend Skjetne

I picture him now: There is light snow in the air, he is pulling a hand through the black hair. Just like that he sends me a glance, a quick smile, before lifting a small backpack out of the luggage compartment. If he is traveling that light, he must be one of us. A Different View is a story told from a refugee reception centre in the north of Norway. Eighteen Afghan boys are living there, and Anwar is one of them. He loves books and languages and is called The Professor by the other boys. One day Walid moves into his room. Walid is the absolute opposite of Anwar. A charming rebel and excellent football player. Gradually a friendship grows between Anwar and Walid. But everyday life at the centre is hard and the future uncertain. Who of them - if any - will get to stay in Norway? “A Different View is linguistically interesting, touching and wise. (…) The book is about underage Afghan refugees and is solid and loaded with important perspectives. (…) Anwar’s diary notes and school assignments are full of funny linguistic twists and turns. (…) This compassionate and curious gaze at other people, the rural culture, Norwegian grammar and the incredibly cold climate is one of the book’s foremost qualities. The narrator leaves his mark on the reader.” VG “The thoughts are big, the associations are many. You easily get drawn into the book’s universe. It is exciting and intense.” FRAMTIDA.NO “In the Young Adult book, A Different View, which with the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan could hardly have been more relevant, Erlend Skjetne gives the refugees a voice. (…) He has now written his first Young Adult novel, and it has become an ambitious and important book. Important because it looks at teenage life in Norway from a completely unknown side. Ambitious because Anwar is a philosophically minded young man, who will happily ponder over concepts such as home, community, friendship and belonging. The language is also ambitious.” NRK “Erlend Skjetne’s novel describes life in an asylum reception center in a down-to-earth and unsentimental way. The book directs an important socially critical look towards the recipient link, in other words, us, and highlights what Norway has to offer young people in need, for better or worse.” BARNEBOKKRITIKK.NO

The Match Fixer

Michael Stilson

The final book in a trilogy about professional footballer Fredrik Markussen. Fredrik, from the previous books Just Play Ball and Alone Through is living the professional dream and his football career is really taking off in Germany. There are just two matches left in the season and thanks to Fredrik, Hertha Berlin has a good chance of defending its spot in the Bundesliga. But the day before the first of these two decisive matches, Fredrik’s father turns up and Fredrik is forced to settle accounts with the man who has always let him down. At the same time, his agent, Marko, is pressuring Fredrik to carry out the last stage of a plan that will have major consequences for both Hertha Berlin and Fredrik’s future as a professional player. Huge contracts are at stake, along with huge sums of international football money, and Fredrik has to make some crucial choices. Will he fix the final match?

Alone Through

Michael Stilson

An action-packed YA novel about soccer, performance anxiety, dreams, doubts and hopes. Fredrik from Just Play Ball is 17 and already a star player for Mjøndalen. Rumours are flying about bigger clubs and generous contracts, and one day his father turns up with an offer from top German club Hertha Berlin. Fredrik travels to Germany, but soon he discovers that something doesn’t add up. Why has he been picked to play at the Bundesliga series opener, against no less than Bayern München, just days after arriving in Berlin? What’s up with agent Marko? And why has Hertha spent so many millions on bringing over a player when nobody in the club knows who he is? Fears and dreams collide in front of 75,000 spectators at the Allianz Stadion, and there’s a fine line between success and disaster. Is the price Fredrik is paying for life as a professional footballer too high? And what happens if he lets down his team, his father, his manager and Line? Who really cares about Fredrik? Are millions in the bank really any help against loneliness and the fear that everyone will forget you when the storm is at its height?

The Game of Death

Anne Elvedal

The Game of Death is the first book in a paranormal horror trilogy on par with the best we've seen within YA. Sixteen-year-old Rebekka is looking forward to the annual motorcycle summer vacation with her father. But plans change abruptly when her father dies in an accident, just after a big quarrel between them. Filled with guilt and despair, Rebekka visits the Barn, her father’s car repair shop where he helped troubled kids put their lives back together. Among old vintage cars and tools, she finds a spirit board. Hoping that this may bring her in contact with her father, Rebekka uses the spirit board, which opens up a number of strange and frightening events. In addition, Rebekka receives a surprising message: Her father’s death was not an accident, he was killed. Suddenly Rebekka faces a mystery that is far greater and more complicated than she could have imagined. The Game of Death explores existential issues around death and love, loneliness and grief, faith and belonging. Belonging to oneself, to other people, and to something greater outside oneself. Is it possible that our lives are woven together with past lives, allowing old curses to haunt us and giving love left unspoken another chance?