The story on which Hamburg writer Kirsten Boie based her new children’s book “Skogland Burns” caused international horror more than ten years ago. In July 2011, right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik killed 69 people in a youth summer camp on the island of Utøya.
Boie now brings this massacre to her fictional Skogland. The third volume in the series is set largely in the months before the horrific act of violence, but also in the middle of it. That is hard for the readers, but also important. Because “Skogland Burns” shows the courage of some, the anger of many, the delusion of a single person – and the options for a better society without xenophobia.
Boie herself writes in her foreword that she does not want to reproduce pain or suffering with her book. “Rather, I see fiction as an opportunity to promote understanding and to engage deeply with the challenges of our time.”
The book is a plea for looking, for overcoming divisions, for tolerance and solidarity – and also for patience. And it shows what influence even young people can have – in both a positive and negative sense.
In volume three, about the Kingdom of Skogland, King Magnus, who was once kidnapped by coup plotters, is back in power. Democracy prevails and some reforms have already been implemented to finally unite the poor north and the rich south. But for some, they are not going fast enough and for others, they are going too far.
Discontent is building up, and individual groups or people are becoming radicalized. The frustrated southern nobility is causing supply shortages and blaming the government. And the rebels are causing fear and terror with small attacks in the south.
As in Volume 1 and Volume 2, the story is told primarily from the perspective of the young princess and half-northerner Jarven and her friend and interior minister’s son Joel, who also comes from the north.
Until recently she was living in poverty in Germany, now she lives in an elite boarding school in the south of Scandinavia – and the loner Hjalmar, the son of rich southerners, is also going there. He is mean to everyone and always alone. That is why no one knows that he is a right-wing extremist and sees himself as the chosen one to save the “Aryan race”. And his bloodthirsty plan for “cleansing” takes shape when he hears Jarven and her friend talking about a planned north-south youth summer camp.
Although the end of the story is largely clear from the beginning, it is easy to get carried away when reading the political thriller “Skogland Burns”. It is a series of stories about secret political games, cliques among the rich, teenage love and the power of social media. Boie accurately records social trends and the thoughts of her characters – no matter how messed up, grueling or pubescent they are.
The book is not for the faint-hearted, which is why the Hamburg-based Oetinger publishing house has set the recommended age at 15. In “Skogland brennt” Boie does not give lightly answers or solutions to right-wing extremism and division. She relies on readers to think for themselves and find them. And the book – like many of Boie’s youth books before it – certainly provides an impetus for this.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:240913-930-231199/1
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