Malin Klingenberg and Maria Sann

“We only go to the park while it’s still light outside. Because when it gets dark, the oldies come.” And so begins Malin Klingenberg and Maria Sann’s gripping picture-book thriller Gamlingarna (“The Oldies”, not translated into English), about a trio of children who do not dare to visit the playground because of a group they dislike and fear. But who are “the oldies” really – and what right do they have to decide who may or may not be in the park? 

With a deeply compassionate perspective of children, Klingenberg and Sann portray an everyday conflict of great magnitude for the young protagonists, who feel unjustly excluded from a place that ought to be theirs. The seriousness of this struggle for power is nuanced with both comic and emancipatory elements, as it builds towards the moment when the children, hearts pounding, finally come face to face with their opponents. 

Together, Klingenberg and Sann narrate with remarkable fluency in the picture-book form. Despite its simple premise, the subtext is charged with meaning. The book’s condensed atmosphere and dramatic progression are skilfully constructed through the use of heavily reduced text, a sombre colour palette, elusive shadows, enigmatic silhouettes, bold shifts in perspective, and expressive glances and facial expressions. Readers encounter a child’s world where dangers and fears are felt viscerally, fuelled and magnified by imagination, yet also confronted with heroic courage and a strong sense of justice. 

Malin Klingenberg (b. 1979) is a multi award-winning Finnish-Swedish author. Since her debut in 2010, she has mainly written books for children in their in-between years, as well as picture books in collaboration with various illustrators. She has published around 30 books, translated into a total of 15 languages.

Maria Sann (b. 1982) is a Finnish illustrator who, since her debut in 2019, has illustrated almost ten novels and picture books. In 2021, she was awarded the Rudolf Koivu prize for the picture book Bokstavsvärldar (with text by Henrika Andersson). Gamlingarna (2025) is Klingenberg and Sann’s fourth picture-book collaboration and a standalone continuation of Främlingarna (2021) and Rymlingarna (2024), in which the same trio of children explore relationships and power structures in their own distinctive ways.