Aki-Pekka Sinikoski & Ilja Karsikas: Under the Moon

A sensitive and wistful book about existence, the purpose of life, and a strange adventure.

Author: Aki-Pekka Sinikoski
Illustrator: Ilja Karsikas
Swedish | Finnish original: Under månen | Kuun valossa
Publisher: Schildts & Söderströms, 2020
Genre: illustrated children’s fiction
Number of pages: 42 pp.
Reading material: Swedish original, Finnish original, English translation

Rights sold: Estonia, Rahva Raamat; South Korea, Korean Studies International

“ When I was little, my mum flew to the moon. She worked at the circus. That night they shot her up in the air, like always. But it wasn’t an ordinary night; it was a night full of magic. Once my mum was in the air, she never came down, she simply went on flying. Through the tent, past the clouds, all the way to the moon. That’s where she’s sitting now. Looking down at us and smiling.”

The evening bath takes the child of the story to a deserted island where odd friends reflect on life while they make fish soup and pancakes. In between they play chess and look for things to find on the beach.

But then God rings up and says that it’s time to go home as Dad is waiting.

Aki-Pekka Sinikoski makes his debut as an author with a warm and philosophical text that receives a precise and personal accompaniment from Ilja Karsikas’ watercolour illustrations. In Under the Moon, they create a magical world where sadness, but also beauty and absurdity, have a place. This sensitive and wistful book about the meaning of love, existence and the purpose of life brings to mind children’s classics of world literature like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince.

About the authors:
Aki-Pekka Sinikoski
Ilja Karsikas