Windflowers and Piss Rats

Oskar Kroon & Hanna Klinthage

I think pretty often about the rats. Both the real ones who scurried over the old toasters and clutter, and the others. The piss rats, who ruined the life of the only ones who truly dared to be themselves. Let me tell you about Krister. My brother. Let me tell you what happened that horrible winter.

Kaj loves his older brother Krister. He knows so much. About space, robots and parallel universes. About taking the right bus and finding the best stuff at the dump. Krister dares to be himself. Or rather, it’s that he doesn’t know how to be anything else. He is who he is. But it causes problems. Like that thing with Zack, for example. Finally, Kaj cannot watch any longer, he has to do something. He has to save Krister.

Oskar Kroon is back with a sensitive and moving story about siblings and vulnerability.

Press voices

“A novel that really feels from the first moment (…) fine-tuned and rock-hard at the same time, with a clear nerve that drives the reading forward. It feels both timeless and completely new. Have I ever read anything about what it is like to be the sibling of someone who is bullied? Not anything like this anyway.” Lisa Bjärbo & Johanna Lindbäck, Vi läser

“This is an amazingly heartbreaking story and very beautifully illustrated.” Johanna Lundin, Aftonbladet

“Oskar Kroon is one of our best storytellers for children’s books. Oskar Kroon has an ability to colour everyday deceptions with a helpless melancholy. (…) he is the absolute best when he writes for the beginners, like in this years August winner Windflowers and Piss Rats” Lotta Olsson, Dagens Nyheter

“Oskar Kroon writes incomparably about bullying and sibling love” Politiken

“A really nice, well-written and harsh novel about bullying! The reader is completely drawn into Kaj’s feeling of powerlessness, but also his great love for his older brother. The language is fluent, the tension is high and the plot is so well put together that the reader is completely caught up in the story.” Mette Balle Christensen, Dansk BiblioteksCenter

Awards

 

Longlisted for the Premio Strega 2025 (Italy) category 8+

 

Winner of the August Prize 2023

“The darkness gets on well with the cleverly humorous in Oskar Kroon’s empathetic sibling portrayal. When the idolized older brother is exposed to brutal bullying, the younger brother intuitively accepts the quiet pain and turns it into a creative as well as desperate counterattack. Hanna Klinthage’s delicate drawings perfect the balancing act. In Vitsippor och pissråttor, the severity is given room while the light shines with undiminished strength.”

Selected for the White Raven 2024

“Kaj and Krister are brothers. Kaj is the younger one, Krister the older one. Kaj admires and adores his older brother. Krister knows so much about space and which bus to take. Yet lately, Krister has not been himself, he has been depressed and quiet. Kaj realises that Sacke – the filthy rat – is needling, bullying, and threatening Krister. This can’t go on! Kaj wants to help Krister, to protect him. Krister refuses to tell the adults, because then it will only get worse. So Kaj decides that they have to help themselves. Together with Naima, he thinks about how they can get back at Sacke… Oskar Kroon has quickly written his way into the top league of Swedish children’s book novelists: He tackles the challenges of children’s lives at eye level, with sensitivity, a feel for language, and great loyalty. Hanna Klinthage’s black-and-white illustrations for »Vitsippor och Pissrattor« reflect these qualities on a visual level and perfectly complement the text. The book was awarded the prestigious August Prize in 2023.”

 

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