Stop the Thief! by Ulla Donner, A Dog Called Cat Says Farewell by Tomi Kontio & Elina Warsta, and Palestine and Israel. A History in Maps by Timo R. Stewart are running for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award.
The nominations keep rolling in for our beautiful list: Stop the Thief! by Ulla Donner, A Dog Called Cat Says Farewell by Tomi Kontio & Elina Warsta, and Palestine and Israel. A History in Maps by Timo R. Stewart are running for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award. Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award.
Each year, the Finnish Book Art Committee selects the most beautiful books published in Finland during the previous year. One title is awarded as the Year’s Most Beautiful Book, and others, organised according to their categories, receive honorary mentions.
Stop the Thief!, penned and illustrated by Ulla Donner, and published by Schildts & Söderströms, is a humorous picture book in rhyme where a dog goes rogue and starts stealing other dogs’ most prized possessions, prompting a chaotic and furry thief hunt. Stop the Thief! is also running for the Runeberg Junior Prize.
A Dog Called Cat Says Farewell by Tomi Kontio & Elina Warsta is designed and illustrated by Elina Warsta, and published by Teos. It is the last chapter in the successful and critically acclaimed A Dog Called Cat series, and has won the Finlandia Junior Prize, the most prestigious children’s literature award in Finland, last autumn. A Dog Called Cat Says Farewell follows friends Cat, Dog, and Weasel as they say goodbye when Weasel embarks on his last journey.
Both titles are running in the children’s books category.
Running in the non-fiction category is Palestine and Israel. A History in Maps, by Timo R. Stewart, published by Gummerus and designed by Tuija Tarkiainen from Studio Kiss. In the book, two-times Finlandia nominee and PhD Timo R. Stewart uses a simple yet efficient structure to tackle a complex issue: over the course of the book, he analyzes 25 maps of the geographical area that encompasses Palestine and Israel, encouraging a critical approach to maps and historiography.
Who drew these maps, and with what purpose? Maps are a tool to understand the world, but also a tool of political power and history-making: our ideas of the world and national borders are far from being eternal and set in stone, and exploring their changes and development results in an unusual yet engaging way to approach history with more than skin-deep knowledge. The takeaway is an increased critical eye that can be turned to the different ways conflicts and politics shape the world we live in, in the Middle East and everywhere.
Congratulations to all nominees, authors, publishers, and graphic designers – and fingers crossed!