Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Bröderna Pixon och TV:ns hemtrevliga sken
[The Pixon brothers and the homely shimmer of the telly]
Helsingfors: Schildts & Söderströms, 2013. 38 pp.
Illustrerad av [Illustrated by] Linda Bondestam
ISBN 978-951-523-124-6
€22, hardback

Finnish translation:
Pixonin pojat ja TV:n kotoisa kajo
Suomentanut [translated by] Maarit Halmesarka
Helsinki: Teos, 2013. 38 pp.
ISBN 978-951-851-524-4
€27.90, hardback

The four Pixon brothers spend their time watching the telly and eating cereals and sweets. Their mother, in desperation, constantly demands that they go out and play, but they just don’t. The thin brothers’ teeth are bad as they have no vitamins in their blood: indeed they are as fit as 90-year-olds. One day the telly goes bust and the brothers end up in their neighbours’ home, where the two ladies cook them a good meal. They finally do go out and play – until the point of exhaustion: the story presents the reader with sinister turns à la Grimm brothers or Hoffmann, which the gloomy, dark pictures, suddenly devoid of colours, comically illustrate. But colours return to the pictures as well as to the brothers, who are now as fit as any 64-year old! This is the authors’ second book for children. Kivelä’s lesson takes the mickey out of didacticism but does not lose the point, so fun is had by all. Bondestam’s detailed, graphic pictures spice the story with amusing horror.