Winner of the 2019 Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize

This year’s winning book has a somewhat enigmatic title.  The title in Norwegian has a double meaning – “everyone counts/tells” – but it’s more than a Where’s Wally? book. It says that everyone should be counted and mean something; that everyone is unique and valuable. The number of people in the colourful pictures grows from a single boy looking at the stars, to thousands of people watching a rare comet. Although there are many stylised people in the pictures, they all have individual features that allow us to recognise them. In a variety of contexts and environments, they gradually emerge with the own distinctive lives. The text is poetic and funny. It arouses curiosity and gives us clues for understanding what’s going on in the pictures. With Alle sammen teller (available in English with the title Everyone counts, published by Magikon, 2018) Kristin Roskifte allows both the text and images to form part of a context that is different and unique within the tradition of a ‘Where’s Wally?’ style book. It is a work that can be read time and again, and each time we discover something new.