All the Dear Little Animals

Ulf Nilsson, illustrated by Eva Eriksson

“The whole world is full of dead animals,” said Ester, “in every bush there’s a bird, a butterfly, a mouse. Somebody has to be kind and take care of them. Somebody has to make a sacrifice and bury all these dead bodies.”
“Who,” I said.
“Us,” she said.
Ester was always very brave. I was little and scared. That boring summer day we started a company called Funerals Ltd. We were going to provide the best funerals in the world and help all the poor dead animals just lying there on the ground. Ester’s job was to dig. I was going to write poems. And Ester’s little brother Putte was going to do the crying.

With enormous insight, precision, humour and an irrepressible tone Ulf Nilsson has written a book about playing and being serious, life and death; everybody will be able to recognise themselves in his story. The game is liberating and unsentimental, but there is also a tone of underlying seriousness.

“Sometimes amusing and sometimes moving, Nilsson’s simply written text is always satisfying. Eriksson’s sensitive, beguiling pencil drawings with color washes brighten every double-page spread.” Booklist