Overview

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).    

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9781776574278

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Reviews

Packed with preadolescent angst, Sigunsdotter's trim, quirky novel follows 11-year-old Cricket, who rates her life as 'pretty good' until she returns to school after two weeks with chicken pox to discover that her best friend Noa has deserted her for a clique of 'horse girls.' Soon, the girl's beloved Aunt Frannie, who's an artist like Cricket plans to be, loses her 'life-joy' and is institutionalized in 'something called Adult Psych.' Cricket tries to cope with these developments--hiding in the school bathroom, visiting Aunt Frannie as often as possible, and going outside on sleepless nights to throw cucumbers from a bridge--while trying to gently discourage a sweaty-handed male friend who suddenly wants to go out with her. The humorously blunt first-person narrative, which includes Cricket's numerous revealing lists--secrets shared only with Noa ('Only my right breast has started growing'), secrets not even shared with Noa ('Sometimes I'm scared Mom and Dad will die')--offers a sympathetic portrait of an idiosyncratic, thoughtful preteen in a period of turmoil. Eriksson's scratchy b&w drawings, which accentuate Cricket's emotions with a journal-like vibe, portray all characters with paper-white skin.--Publishers Weekly -- Journal (3/3/2022 12:00:00 AM)

Author Information

Kristina Sigunsdotter is a Swedish writer, artist and playwright with a degree in ethnology, English and journalism, currently living in Malmö, Sweden. Her play Systrarna Stormhatt och det stora fågeläventyret has been played at the Royal Dramatic Theatre and Stockholm City Theatre. She is the founder of The Poetry Factory, a poetry workshop for children. Ester Eriksson is an artist and cartoonist. Her earlier published works include the graphic novels Jag, Esters rester and Det finns ingenstans att fly.

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