Sólrún Michelsen and Annika Øyrabø

Sjókæti (A–OY), not translated into English, is a poetic and playful ABC book that takes the reader beneath the sea’s surface through the Faroese alphabet. We journey from A to OY – 29 letters and three diphthongs – with each page offering a new encounter with fish and other sea creatures inhabiting the waters around the Faroe Islands. 

With short, rhythmic verses, Sólrún Michelsen creates a text that is easy to read aloud and difficult to put down. The rhymes possess a musicality and playful inventiveness that invite both children and adults to savour the sounds, repeat them, and discover more. The book’s central idea of letting the alphabet “swim” turns reading into a sensory and active experience, where language acquisition and curiosity go hand in hand. 

Annika Øyrabø’s illustrations are colourful, quirky, and full of humour. They extend the book’s linguistic play into an equally playful visual universe. Through paper-cut techniques and collage, she creates a tactile expression with layers, textures, and small visual surprises in close interplay with the rhymes. The sea creatures appear as distinct personalities, and the interaction between word and image generates a strong narrative drive, allowing children to “read” along through the illustrations, before they’re even able to read the text themselves. 

At the same time, the book holds particular cultural significance: it strengthens and expands a small language community by offering children (and adults) a rich and concrete vocabulary connected to the sea that surrounds the islands. 

The book’s impact was confirmed when it was selected for The White Ravens 2025 (International Youth Library), where it was singled out as a strong literary and visual example of an ABC book with both local roots and universal appeal. 

Sólrún Michelsen (b. 1948) is one of the Faroe Islands’ most prominent and versatile writers. She writes for both children and adults and has also translated several children’s books into Faroese. Among her awards are the Tórshavn Municipality Children’s Book Prize (2002) and the Fiction Prize (2008). In Sjókæti, Michelsen uses sound, rhythm, and wordplay as a gateway to both the joy of reading and learning. 

Annika Øyrabø (b. 1977) is a designer and illustrator. She studied at the Danish Design School and Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften in Hamburg. Øyrabø has illustrated several children’s books, and in Sjókæti she further develops her distinctive visual language in an image landscape that is both graphically precise and playful. The paper cuts and collages give the book a recognisable visual identity and make the illustrations an active co-narrator, expanding the text and engaging the reader’s imagination and interpretation.