Finnish picturebook art has recently gained visibility in art museums both in Finland and Sweden. In her editorial, Päivi Heikkilä-Halttunen celebrates the rising appreciation of picturebooks. However, challenges remain in making parents and professional educators aware of the quality and versatility of Finnish picturebooks. More public discussion and media coverage of this literary medium is needed, the target audience should be broadened, and illustrations should increasingly be valued as an equal part of the picturebook verbal-visual narration.
In her doctoral dissertation, Katrina Åkerholm expands our knowledge of the many possibilities picturebooks offer when teaching middle school students language and literature. Åkerholm studies picturebooks as tools for provocation and is interested in the emotions they may awake in young people, as well as whether these books can spark philosophical discussions. She argues that, at their best, picturebooks provide young people with tools for critical thinking on personal as well as societal matters.
Now and then picturebook illustrations feature various product brands and everyday consumer goods. Rather than being calculated advertising, this phenomenon may be used to reflect the spirit of the times and to evoke a sense of recognition in the viewer. For her article, Päivi Heikkilä-Halttunen has selected examples from a period spanning a hundred years. She has found that overt corporate marketing was especially present in Finnish children’s books from the 1920s and 1930s. Today’s picturebooks are characterised by an increasing attention to an ecological lifestyle. In the latest editions of the Tatu and Patu and Veera books, Aino Havukainen and Sami Toivonen have removed references to meat and dairy products, replacing them with vegan alternatives.
Sirpa Sipinen takes a closer look at picturebooks about grandparents’ memory disorders. The earliest picturebooks on this theme were translations that appeared nearly 20 years ago. These works address the complex and often conflicting emotions that a grandparent’s onset dementia evokes in children. The books offer both children and their parents peer support and models for expressing emotions. The books often depict how the illness reverses the roles between grandparent and grandchild, and how the child begins to take on more responsibility. The child may help the grandparent remember and find words and can assist with everyday tasks.
J. S. Meresmaa has interviewed authors of children’s and YA books whose works feature neurodiverse protagonists. These authors believe literature can influence public opinion and dismantle stereotypes related to neurodiversity. Still, Veera Salmi does not want to reduce and compartmentalize neurodiversity into diagnosed categories in her children’s and YA books. Instead, she argues that neurodivergence can be regarded as a kind of superpower.
Illustrator and author Sari Airola expresses concern about the impact of AI-illustrated children’s books on illustrators’ work and earning opportunities. While the phenomenon is more prominent in Sweden and globally, Finnish illustrators are aware of the immorality, energy consumption, and copyright problems associated with AI-generated imagery. In a worst-case scenario, AI may even influence the content of books. Do we really want such easily digestible, quickly made, and superficial content, Airola asks.
Translation Maria Lassén-Seger