Synopsis
Paper Hearts is about standing in the middle of a whirlwind of feelings and body, to feel abandoned and wrong and at the same time, finding out how to be a good friend. Or a girl friend. Or daughter. Or perhaps just yourself?
It is summer and the class is buzzing. But Alva cannot go to the public pool, because she is going to her dad's for the summer break. Now she can instead sit and scroll through all the stuff that she is missing out on. A heart can be torn as thin silk paper, but luckily new ones can be folded and given to someone who looks after them.
Paper Hearts is a warm and hopeful story about the summer before everything begins.
Winner of the Danish Cultural Ministry’s Children’s and YA Author Prize 2023
Check out Danish publisher, Gutkind’s, lovely extra material here.
Reviews
"A really lovely and sensitive story about the transition from child to young woman, with the changes it sparks in emotions and in the body… the book’s strength is the stunning cover, the imagery in combination with the paper hearts and especially the stunning and original layout, where the text is broken up and the sentences are spread out over the pages" – (Danish Library Centre, Dansk BiblioteksCenter)
"This lovely yellow book comes warmly recommended for all imminent and newly bloomed teenagers" – (Litteratursiden)
"Hanne Dagmar Raaberg makes word art in Paper Hearts – with aesthetic means she addresses the big dilemma’s of pre-teens head-on and adds hope to a childhood life that hungers for the reassurance that ‘everything will be fine’ … I give Paper Hearts 1000 hearts" – (Danish blog, Bogbotten)
