Search Results for: secrets of cricket

The Secrets of Cricket Karlsson

Winner of the prestigious Swedish August Prize 2020.

A bright, contemporary and fearless novel about an ordinary extraordinary eleven-year-old trying to win back her best friend and get her mother to stop sighing.

Cricket Karlsson is going to become an artist just like her aunt, who loves cheese and art and always speaks her mind. Not like Cricket’s mother, who is dieting and sighs at everything. But now Aunt Frannie has lost her joy and Cricket’s best friend has dumped her for the horse girls.

Eleven-year-old Cricket Karlsson is a warm and complex character with an artistic soul. Written as a diary, tween readers will fall in love with Cricket’s tough yet charming voice as she shares her secret thoughts about her best friend break-up, her Aunt’s breakdown and experimental chewing gum sculptures. Punkish and surprising comic-style illustrations perfectly compliment this coming of age story.

This is a liberating and unexpected story about growing up, fitting in, and sorting out the adults in our lives that will reach the hearts of young readers (and older ones).

Kristina Sigunsdotter is a Swedish writer, artist and playwright. She is also the founder of The Poetry Factory, a poetry workshop for children.

Ester Eriksson is an artist and cartoonist from the Netherlands.

Activity sheet | Author Q&A | Look inside video

Translated by Julia Marshall.

Ebook available wherever you buy your ebooks

Day in the life of Kristina Sigunsdotter

Hi! I’m Kristina, author of The Secrets of Cricket Karlsson. I live in a town called Malmö in the southern part of Sweden. I usually write my books sitting on the couch in my living room, with the view of the sky, the ceilings and my new – very happy – lamp!

The Secrets of Cricket Karlsson: Q&A with Kristina Sigunsdotter

“When I was eleven I used to pretend I was a boy a lot, and I was longing for love. All I wanted to do was to play-wrestle with my friend Michael. He had bleached hair and could play Nirvana songs on his guitar. But I was so tall and skinny it was hard to get boys interested. They liked the short and cute girls, not ones with cricket legs like me.”

Leilong as umbrella

A dinosaur by another name | Translation

By Rachel Lawson, publisher at Gecko Press. When we translate a book into English from another language, one of the first questions for the translator is the names of the characters—and often that affects the title too.

Bookmaking bests of the Gecko Press year

By Rachel Lawson, Publisher at Gecko Press.

Every book is a careful process of translation, editing, design, layout, proofreading and printing — with small and big decisions from all of those involved and at every stage that change how the book will be for its readers. Here are ten decisions that I’ll remember from the year we’ve had.