Author(s): Kristina Sigunsdotter

Senior Fiction | Social Issues & Relationships | Read our reviews! | Gecko Press

A bright, contemporary and fearless novel about an ordinary extraordinary eleven-year-old trying to win back her best friend and get her mother to stop sighing.Cricket Karlsson is going to become an artist just like her aunt, who loves cheese and art and always speaks her mind. Not like Cricket's mother, who is dieting and sighs at everything. But now Aunt Frannie has lost her joy and Cricket's best friend has dumped her for the horse girls. Eleven-year-old Cricket Karlsson is a warm and complex character with an artistic soul. Written as a diary, tween readers will fall in love with Cricket’s tough yet charming voice as she shares her secret thoughts about her best friend break-up, her Aunt’s breakdown and experimental chewing gum sculptures. Punkish and surprising comic-style illustrations perfectly compliment this coming of age story. This is a liberating and unexpected story about growing up, fitting in, and sorting out the adults in our lives that will reach the hearts of young readers (and older ones). Kristina Sigunsdotter is a Swedish writer, artist and playwright. She is also the founder of The Poetry Factory, a poetry workshop for children. Ester Eriksson is an artist and cartoonist from the Netherlands. Praise for The Secrets of Cricket Karlsson “The humorously blunt first-person narrative, which includes Cricket’s numerous revealing lists…offers a sympathetic portrait of an idiosyncratic, thoughtful preteen in a period of turmoil.” —Publishers Weekly.

A VOLUME FAVOURITE!
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STELLA'S REVIEW:
Ever been eleven and lonely? Or wondered why your best friend is hanging out with the mean kids? Or wished your mother didn’t sigh so much? If you answer yes to any of these questions then you need Cricket Karlsson. Ever wanted to make art? Ride a horse in the moonlight? Ever been unable to get out of bed or unable to get someone you love out of bed? Then you need Cricket Karlsson. Cricket Karlson is eleven, has a ‘potato’ heart (which is currently mashed because her best friend Noa isn’t talking to her), is finding out about love, is visiting her aunt in the psych ward, loves to draw and doesn’t like the horse girls. And she has secrets — secrets that only a best friend, like Noa, knows! The Secrets of Cricket Karlsson from the pen of Kristina Sigunsdottir and the brush of Ester Eriksson is another standout from Gecko Press. I loved it, and it’s even better on the second reading. It has lists of not very Ugliest Words, absurd and unlikely Things Grandpa Says you Can Die From, unusual Psychiatric Illnesses I Don’t Want, and delightful Secrets I Have Only Told to Noa. Told with the keen observation of an eleven-year-old with all the concerns of childhood and changing circumstances, the words leap off the page with feistiness, humour and pathos. It lightly touches on worries and fears (climate change, mental health, sadness, regret) while embracing the best things about being that age when you’ll still a kid, but only just. Who hasn’t noticed the horse girls with their neighing and prancing, or squirmed when a boy (or a girl) is doe-eyed and you just don’t like him like that, or locked themselves in the bathroom (sometimes crying) to avoid being harassed? Cricket Karlsson finds out that life isn’t always what you expect, that loneliness passes, and that even an eleven-year-old can make a sad person happy. Black humour abounds and Cricket Karlsson is a star (with secrets and lists, a big heart and a little mischief, and her favourite food is cheese-on-cheese-in-cheese). I think I’ll pop to bed and read it again. 

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REVIEW:
Sigunsdotter's honest voice and Eriksson's sophisticated and generously distributed art come together to honour the passion of (young female) friendships, and the pain that accompanies their dissolution. -The New York Times
It's properly funny (like, do a little snort level of funny). Without talking down to youngsters, it treats them with the respect and smarts that middle-readers deserve and in doing so perfectly captures the liminal space between childhood and adolescence. - Dominion Post
Sigunsdotter's honest voice and Eriksson's sophisticated and generously distributed art come together to honour the passion of (young female) friendships, and the pain that accompanies their dissolution. - The New York Times
(Cricket is) a voice of a generation, to quote Girls." - Expressen
Packed with preadolescent angst, Sigunsdotter's trim, quirky novel follows 11-year-old Cricket, who rates her life as "pretty good" until she returns to school after two weeks with chicken pox to discover that her best friend Noa has deserted her for a clique of "horse girls." Soon, the girl's beloved Aunt Frannie, who's an artist like Cricket plans to be, loses her "life-joy" and is institutionalized in "something called Adult Psych." Cricket tries to cope with these developments-hiding in the school bathroom, visiting Aunt Frannie as often as possible, and going outside on sleepless nights to throw cucumbers from a bridge-while trying to gently discourage a sweaty-handed male friend who suddenly wants to go out with her. The humorously blunt first-person narrative, which includes Cricket's numerous revealing lists-secrets shared only with Noa ("Only my right breast has started growing"), secrets not even shared with Noa ("Sometimes I'm scared Mom and Dad will die")-offers a sympathetic portrait of an idiosyncratic, thoughtful preteen in a period of turmoil. Eriksson's scratchy b&w drawings, which accentuate Cricket's emotions with a journal-like vibe, portray all characters with paper-white skin. Ages 8-12. - Publishers Weekly