To read this book, you need a sofa. Or a huge table. At least strong arms. For the book weighs two and a half kilos and is the largest children’s book I’ve ever seen. Impossible to bypass when the Nordic Council award for best children’s and youth book was to be awarded last year. Then it is still the content, and not the solid format, that makes this book outstanding. Well, it is connected, format and content, in Jakob Martin Strid’s fantastic bus. A fantastic bus: There are challenges in line, but with unity and collaboration, the group of friends creates the world’s most fantastic bus. 👉sveip👉for a detail level! Jakob Martin Strid’s modern metropolis is impressively vibrant. 👉sveip👉 not only glass and concrete: At the harbor are the home -grown houses of Taku and his friends. Now the authorities want to demolish “crashed” and build new. Where should the good -natured animals live now? 👉fred👉fred and delight: If only saffron lilies can be spread for all winds, they will bring salvation to the whole world. Out on the adventure it begins with a drone. Small and yellow it appears in a blue sky. It drops the outermost of a pier in Ahnstarr City. It is the friends Spir and Taku who find it. Taku takes on to tell the story of how it was that they built the wonderful bus, and that they all came to the happy country of Balanka. The drama is underway. The adventure can begin. But it should turn out that the adventure is also of a vital nature. Little Timo is dead, and the only possible medicine is found in the rare saffron lilies, which only grow in a country far, far away. Can friends find the flowers and save Timo? Community and courage with exquisite detail, Jakob Martin Strid has drawn ahnstarr City. The city extends over two sides; Here are skyscrapers, excavators, glass and concrete. Advertising signs, bridges and a messy harbor. It is here, in the home -grown houses along the water, Taku and his friends live. As in Strid’s perhaps most famous book, “The incredible story of the huge bulb”, we are served a person gallery at the start of the book. This is our gang. These are the ones we should cheer for. They are all animals. It is also one of Strid’s specialties: He creates recognizable people with explorer and courage in the figure of a tiger, bear or dog, yes, often also a rhino or an elephant. Large project 15 years, it has taken Jakob Martin Strid to create the book. He stands for text and pictures himself, and everything is done by hand, and on paper. No digital drawing or painting programs in turn here, that is. It is an impressive job. One thing is to draw engines, screws, stamps and wheels so meticulous that we actually think it is possible to get off with this bus that can accommodate the entire neighborhood. Something else is getting personality and feelings into the animals. The old lion Tolstoy is disillusioned, but was once a successful hippie and botanist. The mowing Lucas is a sacked, alcoholic pilot. André is a hissing plug of a tiger, Doctor Dion has sensible little glasses on his Grevlingsnuten. Not to mention the lovely and worried Mrs. Friby, the mother of Timo. She is a little frog and wonders if her son, whom she has adopted, has become ill since she is an amphibian and he a mammal. Can Timo be saved? There is a lot of care in the illustrations where Doctor Dion has to reveal that there is no cure for little Timo. Photo: Jakob Martin Strid / Vigmostad Bjørke Maybe I couldn’t give him enough warmth when he was little, she cries, but Doctor Dion interrupts her kindly: Timo has fallen ill because the air in the city is contaminated. Understandably, we realize that Mrs Friby has probably been the best mother a little Timo could have had. Social criticism A reader with several years on the buttocks will also recognize social criticism. It may be against skewed distribution of goods, against the exploitation of nature, or a lack of initiative to collaborate across nations and borders. On their way to the Promised Land, they pass a dictator, which is the only real evil in the story. He threatens the poor children to give his birthday gifts to him. But he never becomes a real threat to our friends. Factory slave: Dad Taku’s dad works long days at the factory for Taku to get clothes and food and schooling. Illustration: Jakob Martin Strid / Vigmostad Bjørke Dramatic stories for children in recent years have often developed into cruel struggles against a violent enemy with supernatural powers. Not like this: The story never gets really dangerous. Even the rhinos that tear down the homes of the bus gang to modernize the city turn out to have a human face. (If now human is the right word to use in this context). Jakob Martin Strid’s book has a cross through warm, humanistic tone, where diversity and unity are core values. It is a conglomerate of whims, where the illustrations range from ingenious installations with a thousand small elements to large, almost naked landscapes that reveal a wonderful but vulnerable soil. Some may want a tighter structure, a plot of clearer obstacles and counterparts before the goal is reached. But the someone is probably in case an adult reader. For children who have not yet been teased into expectations of a traditional literary bow, they give many whims and detours and the rarities only extra nutrition to the imagination. Substantially Jakob Martin Strid’s text is equal and oral. It is more documenting than emotional. It also makes the adventurous narrative in a soothing way seem a bit “down”. Help when needed: The ways of the gods are unruly. Jakob Martin Strid does not conclude, but lets the question of God’s existence almost open – and allows the help to benefit those who believe. Illustration: Jakob Martin Strid / Vigmostad Bjørke The drama is not raised up, because it is not needed. There is enough energy in the illustrations. Håkon Viggen’s Norwegian translation also sounds good. To say that this is a rich book is an understatement. Strid even gives room for a discussion about whether gods are available. And can happiness exist in a flower? The cunning end is almost too loop for it not to be censored in a children’s book, I think. What it contains? Read for yourself! Interpret it as you want: They take a well -deserved blow, the old friends who have finally spread the blessing of the saffron lily across the world. Photo: Jakob Martin Strid / Vigmostad Bjørke About the book Title: “The fantastic bus” Author: Jakob Martin Strid Genre: Children’s Book Number of pages: 207 Translator: Håkon Viggen Forlag: Vigmostad & Bjørke Date: March 11, 2025 Hi! I am a literature critic in news. Among the really good children’s books I’ve read lately are “Oskar and I” by Maria Parr and Åshild Irgens. Also read the case of Emil in Lønneberget, the light -skinned gaming maker who is a real classic. Published 14.03.2025, at. 13.59
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