Foreign rights
France and Switzerland: La Joie de Lire
China: Xiaoduo Media
Denmark: Roisante/Høst
United States: Enchanted Lion

Foreign rights: CappelenDamm Agency

Award
Milded L. Batchelder Honor Book 2022, USA

Reviews
‘Thought-provoking narrative entwined with emotive illustrations create an enchanting story that can be appreciated by children of all ages.’ Batchelder Award Committee Chair
Dr. Marie A. LeJeune.

‘This Norwegian exposition on death and loss almost defies description. It is mesmeric and obtuse, alarming and atmospheric, and ultimately peaceful and unresolved — much like death and loss themselves. A child mourning her younger brother ventures into a wood with her brother’s spirit (?) in tow, passing creatures familiar and menacing, to arrive in the presence of a lake-bound lady who recounts their story. The scratchy black-and-white figures move through dark, densely colored landscapes full of inexplicable detail on a propulsive quest for something, a hurried passage through the hardest part of their story, to come out the other side. Torseter’s imagery defines their journey, indelibly imprinting on the reader myriad confounding and consuming emotions, in tension with one another. We are left with many questions, but beneath them a definite sense of it’s-going-to-be-okay. This is what art is for.‘
Thom Barthelmess, The Horn Book

(…) Torseter’s fine-lined drawings are loose-handed, minimalist, and eerie. Tree roots in underground caves reach out; skeletons nestle; trees wail. Readers learn, obliquely, that this is a ritual that is reenacted repeatedly. When Vera and the boy, Salander, reach the lake this time, a huge woman rises out of the water, and Vera asks her to ‘tell…the most beautiful story…. The one where there is so much pain, but everything is fine in the end.’ Telling it, the woman brings Salander back to life. Vera can hear his heart now, and as she carries him home in her arms, ‘she feels his warm breath on her cheek.’ … Tjønn’s piece about processing grief is like fresh bereavement itself. A delicate, unnerving meditation.'
Kirkus Reviews

'This is a book you can read many times and discover new things each time. A classic book for all ages, in the sense that experienced readers will read into the text in ways that less experienced readers might not, but the youngest doesn’t feel cheated of anything because of that. Tjønn and Torseter’s fairy-tale world is a fascinating and moving universe.'
Dagbladet

'Den finaste historia is of such a character that, when I try to characterise it, starts to become difficult to write about with words without a certain ironic distance: Poetic and dreamlike, rushing, soaring, beautiful and sharp.'
Barnebokkritikk