Linde Faas (b. 1985) graduated cum laude from the art academy and works as a cartoon animator, artist and illustrator. Faas illustrated many books of different authors, Dutch and international. In 2018 she published her first own picturebook Ik neem je mee (Come with me), followed by De jongen en de walvis (The boy and the whale) in 2019. She lives in Northern Norway, where she finds her inspiration in the wild nature of the arctic north.
‘It sometimes seemed like there was less and less air in the house every day,’ says 12-year-old Pelle about the claustrophobic atmosphere since his dad passed away a year ago. He wonders when grief actually comes to an end. His dad used to say his mum’s eyes were the colour of the Aegean Sea, but ‘over the past year, Mum had cried the entire Aegean empty’. But then she gives Pelle a shoebox full of notes from his dad. Every week he gets to open one and do whatever the note says.
The man who runs the scrapyard just outside the village is a troll, the teacher is a witch and the nursery owner is a kidnapper. No one realises, though, except for Ties and his invisible friend, Matey. Luckily, Matey is also a superhero. They’re the only ones who can save the world – so that’s what they do. They just have to accept that no one understands them and that angry neighbours keep phoning Ties’s parents or banging on the front door almost every day.
Linde Faas was clearly inspired to make this book by the country where she lives: Norway. Vast spaces and huge forests – an elk comes along, and she masterfully paints the Northern Lights. And there’s snow – lots and lots of snow. Faas has as many ways to depict snow as some languages have words for it. You can almost feel the cold rising from the pages.
