The Murkland series

Ylva Karlsson & Katarina Strömgård

Book 1: The Toadling’s Forest

Everything in this book is true.
I wrote it down because it’s so strange. And I might as well
admit it.
It all happened because I rode the bus too far. And I rode the bus too far because I was crying.
But I’m not going to say why. That’s not part of the story.

It’s in the Murklands that Enid accidentally gets off the bus that day, a forest almost no one has entered, because it’s so dense, tangled, and swampy. Everything there just feels a little… off.
There are thorny bushes that almost seem to move, shady birds, and flowers that stare. And then there’s the toadling, the slimy, growling creature that Enid must rescue. But that’s not the only strange thing in the Murklands. For some reason, the forest seems to want to draw Enid in – and keep her there. What kind of place is this, really? What is that enormous creature howling among the trees? And how is Enid supposed to care for the injured toadling?
On the edge of the forest lives Peter with his six-legged cat. Maybe he can help Enid. Though not with the most important thing, of course – the thing about her mother, the thing she has no intention of talking about.

“The language is lively; humor and seriousness are mixed with ease, but above all, it is empathetic – Enid’s eleven-year-old voice is written with confident intimacy. /…/ A book whose sequel readers will eagerly await.” BTJ

Book 2: The Tree of the Kiorps

I know what you think. You think I’m lying. That I live a normal, boring life and try to make myself interesting by claiming that I found a magical forest full of fairytale characters. But if that were the case, I would have invented cute creatures. Not disgusting ones. And I would have made my life normal and simple …

Everything changes for 11-year-old Enid the day she steps into the Murklands. Now she has a slimy (but cute) toadling to take care of, and a babbling crow-like bird who appears everywhere. And those are just some of the strange creatures that can be found in the wild forest … Like the whistling hares, the fnul beetle and the kiorps, the dancing birds that need Enid’s help. The family that owns the forest wants to cut it down to build a shopping mall. How is a child supposed to solve this on their own? (Or with the help of a troublesome bird?)

The Tree of the Kiorps is the second part of the Murkland series, a story by the award-winning duo Ylva Karlsson and Katarina Strömgård, which moves between humor and seriousness, and between realism and fantasy.