The book’s ten stories introduce you to a troll family with eleven children and a dog, a horse, a couple of cats and a pet reindeer. The book takes you through a year in Lapland, starting in midwinter and moving through Easter, May Day, Midsummer, the hay-making season in summer, berry-picking in autumn, the coming of winter, and finally the Christmas holidays and the beginning of another year.

The book is aimed especially at foreigners who want to learn about the nature, traditions and customs of Finland and life above the Arctic Circle, but Finns and native Laplanders can also see their homeland from a new perspective, as the stories combine learning with fun and entertainment. Children and adults alike will enjoy reading about the adventures of Turnip, Tick-Tack and the rest of the Troll children.

Author Michael Hurd, English lecturer at the University of Lapland, reveals that he wrote the first story already in the 1990s in Finnish in a Finnish for Foreigners class.

“I was inspired by Margit Holmberg’s Swedish children’s song, Trollmors vaggsång (The Troll Mother’s Lullaby), and imagined a cycle of stories that would focus on various important cultural and natural events in Lapland throughout the year, with each story featuring one child in the family. It took several years to write the stories, which I first read to my own children.”

Author Michael Hurd and Illustrator Ulla Etto

Michael Hurd is an English lecturer at the University of Lapland. He is originally from the United States and has lived in Rovaniemi since 1987. He is married to a Finnish woman and has three adult children. His academic background is in literature, and he has been teaching a course in children’s literature for the Faculty of Education for many years, as well as another literature course for the Language Centre. With Richard Foley, he is the co-author of A Learner’s Glossary of Lapland, published by Lapland University Press. Aside from writing poems, novels and children’s stories, he sings, plays guitar and writes songs for three local bands.

Ulla Etto is a native of Rovaniemi. She is a former student of the University of Lapland, Faculty of Art and Design. She works as a graphic designer and illustrator. Aside from Where Is Turnip Troll?, for which she did the layout as well as the illustrations, she has worked on several book projects, including her own comic book Joulupukin päiväkirja and the children’s history book Priitu Rovaniemen markkinoilla.

Michael Hurd:
Where Is Turnip Troll, and Other Stories from Lapland
Illustrated by Ulla Etto
Lapland University Press 2013. ISBN 978-952-484-671-4.

Sales:
Academic and Art Bookshop Tila (location: Lapland University Library, Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi), tel. +358 40 821 4242, publications (at) ulapland.fi, order online: www.ulapland.fi/lup

For more information:
Michael Hurd, michael.hurd (at) ulapland.fi
www.turniptroll.com

ULapland/Communications/SV