4th pre-publication sale for AGNES AND THE GARDEN OF DREAMS

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Tuutikki Tolonen’s newest middle-grade adventure book AGNES AND THE GARDEN OF DREAMS Czech rights were just acquired by Portál! This is now the 4th pre-publication sale for this amazing title.

Award-winning Tuutikki Tolonen’s previous Monster Nanny trilogy has been sold to 25 territories and film rights to Ridley Scott’s production company Scott Free Productions.

Agnes and the Garden of Dreams, which will be first published in Finland by WSOY in January 2020 includes beautiful illustrations by Kati Vuorento.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
11-years-old Agnes has to move to a small countryside town with her mother. Her parents are divorced, and Agnes doesn’t know anyone from her new hometown. She is not having the best summer of her life.

But then something weird happens. Agnes finds an old tombstone that has her name and birthday engraved on it – only the birth year is different. Whose grave is it?

Agnes befriends a boy called ”Bun”, who is also lonely. Together they start to solve the mystery of the tombstone. They find out more and more about a family who lived in the town years and years ago. When they go visit the family’s abandoned mansion, Agnes realizes something. She has been there before – in her dreams. What is happening? It feels like someone who lived a long time ago is trying to tell something to Agnes. Is it possible that these two Agneses from different times have some connection?

PUBLISHER’S PRAISE:

„We are very happy to introduce Agnes to Czech readers! It’s a book with a secret we’ve been looking for for our child readers.“
– Hana Zobačová, Editor, Portál , s. r. o, Czech Republic

Request the English reading materials for Agnes here!

 

Rights sold:

FINLAND: WSOY (orig.)

CZECH REPUBLIC: Portál
DENMARK: ABC Forlag
ESTONIA: Eesti Raamat
RUSSIA: Rosman

About author


Kati Vuorento

Kati Vuorento is an illustrator living and working in Espoo, Finland: ”In small details there is an infinite magic. I want my illustrations to stir emotion in the audience. Empathizing is important to me. In my illustrations, I always include approachable characteristics to even the most hardened anti-hero. This is how I mold the characters into personalities with depth and dimension.”

She is the illustrator of middle-grade Agnes Series by Tuutikki Tolonen that in 2021 was nominated for the Arvid Lydecken Award, received an honorable mention for the Runeberg Junior Award, and won the Luku Varkaus Award!


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About author


Tuutikki Tolonen

Tuutikki Tolonen is the author of several acclaimed children’s books, plays and academic articles. She teaches creative writing and has worked as an editor and reporter at Vinski, a Finnish literary magazine for children. For Monster Nanny she received the Arvid Lydecken award.  Her inspiration for the Monster Nanny trilogy sparked during a family breakfast. “My son Leo, then six, said: ‘I heard on the radio yesterday that all moms have to go on vacation and monsters will take their places,” she says.

Her other bestselling series is the Agnes-series, of which the first book "Agnes and the Garden of Dreams" was in 2021 nominated for the Arvid Lydecken Award, received an honorable mention for the Runeberg Junior Award, and won the Luku Varkaus Award. Tolonen tells that the inspiration for Agnes comes for her interest for weird and inexpicable tales, ghost stories and mysteries: "I wanted to write a book my daughter Aili, then nine, would like to read - not too long, not too scary, but very curious."

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