Foolfart

The books about Foolfart and his friends are tales about the small things in life – and the big. The storyline is filled with associations and meaning, and the reader is continuously invited to make his or hers own sense of the existential questions implied in the text. In Norway, Belsvik’s books are regarded as “all-age literature”– adults enjoy them as much as the children. Foolfart’s friends – the persistent Oktava, the grumbly Bunwind, who always talks about “the abroad” and the weather, and the baker Ruskfox, who sleeps beside his dough, are lonely, simple creatures of habit who face the crises and challenges they meet – sometimes reluctant, not always with complete understanding, but always genuine. Even though they are simpleminded, because this is a straightforward world, the characters are rich and profound, and as far from two-dimensional as can be. They are very much themselves, with their sayings and ways of being. Foolfart is a nervous and bewildered little fellow, but he has the duckling as company, and the duckling is – as any child would be – carefree and curious of the world, and he persuades Foolfart to defy the urge to crawl back under the duvet in his warm, safe bed.

Belsvik’s universe is a mixture between the Hundred Acre Wood and Tove Janssons Moominvalley, with the mood of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. The books are beautifully written, the language is calm, tender, and funny, and the characters are just to fall in love with. These are books that stand to be read over and over, both by adults and children.