Shortlisted for the Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation.
A touching story of growing up and discovering what really matters. Joel makes three New Year’s resolutions: To see a naked lady, to toughen himself up so that he can live to be, to see the sea. How he sets out to fulfil these is a moving story of self-discovery.
Joel is growing up. He is getting interested in girls. Just look at his New Year's resolutions: 1 - to see a naked lady, 2 - to toughen himself up so that he can live to be a hundred, and 3 - to see the sea. They all look pretty impossible for a motherless boy in Northern Sweden. Especially as his sailor dad is keen to drown his sadness in drink, and all the local matrons are narrowly watching the pair of them. And then he saves old Simon from a frozen death in the woods, and Joel becomes a local hero.
Internationally acclaimed author Henning Mankell has written numerous Kurt Wallander mysteries. The books have been published in 33 countries and consistently top the bestseller lists in Europe, receiving major literary prizes and generating numerous international film and television adaptations.
Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm in 1948, raised in a village in northern Sweden and now divides his time between Sweden and Maputo, Mozambique, where he works as the director of Teatro Avenida.