Brown
Brown
Written by Håkon Øvreås
Illustrated by Øyvind Torseter
Translated from Norwegian by Kari Dickson
Winner of the 2020 Mildred L. Batchelder Award
Winner of the Dutch Zilveren Griffel (Silver Pen) 2015
Highly anticipated and hot off the press! Brown sequel ✨BLACK✨ is finally here!! 💛
New in the neighborhood and hounded by fort-wrecking bullies, things are looking glum for Rusty. And to top it all off, his grandfather has just died. Rusty is stuck sorting out his emotions while the adults are busy sorting out the “practicalities” with the hospital. But one dark night, after watching a superhero movie on TV, Rusty gets an idea…
Dressed in brown pants, a black-and-brown striped shirt, a brown mask and cape, and his mother’s brown belt, the superhero BROWN is born! Guided by his grandfather’s ghost, two cans of paint, and a little help from his friends, Brown can do anything! Just as long as nobody's parents find out. The fantastical first book in the award-winning My Alter Ego Is A Superhero series from Norway, Brown has been sold into twenty-seven languages and is illustrated throughout by the now-familiar and beloved Øyvind Torseter.
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-59270-212-1
6" (W) x 9" (H) • 136 pages • HC
Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-59270-251-0
6" (W) x 9" (H) • 136 pages • PB
Leveling
Grade Level: 4
Interest Level: 3-7
Lexile Level: 530
Guided Reading Level: S
AWARDS AND REVIEWS
Winner of the 2020 Mildred L. Batchelder Award
Nominated for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 2017
Winner of the German Luchs des Jahres (Best Children and YA Book) 2016
Winner of the Dutch Zilveren Griffel (Silver Pen) 2015
Selected as Top 10 Teacher's Choice by China Education Newspaper 2015
Winner of the Nordic Council's Literary Prize for Children and Young Adults 2014
Winner of the Ministry of Culture's Literature Prize 2013 (Best Children's and Young Adults Book)
Winner of the Trollkrittet Prize 2013 (Norwegian Children's/YA book Writers' debut prize)
Nominated for the Brage Prize for Children and Young Adults 2013
★ "Brown achieves a perfect balance between excitement and introspection, melancholy and humor … Torseter’s drawings, with the light washes of color that accompany them, deliver laughs and other emotions as needed.
Dickson’s translation is swift and assured. Sentences are direct, with nary an adverb to be found. Aside from the universality of its themes—death, bullies, friendship, and growing up—the book’s power and charm arise as much because of what’s left out as what’s included. The presence of technology, for example, is distant; this could be a story from 60 years ago, and the book benefits from the absence with an increased focus on its characters.
Brown is a wonderful book that deserves the many awards it’s received, among them the Norwegian Ministry of Culture’s Literature Prize. English-speaking audiences will eagerly await translations of the next two books in the series.”—STARRED REVIEW, Peter Dabbene, Foreword Reviews
"A reader doesn't finish Brown. One simply closes the book at the end of the words and pictures and allows it a bit of heart space in which to live."—Connie Griffin, BookWorks
★ "The simple pen and ink illustrations add greatly to this fun story of good vs. evil." —STARRED REVIEW, Katrina Yurenka, Youth Services Book Review
"Small, fine-lined ink drawings with color highlights on nearly every page supply this tongue-in-cheek escapade with evocative vignettes depicting Rusty's flights of fancy, quizzical-looking parents and other grown-ups, and masked prowlers in homemade outfits." —Kirkus Reviews
“The book has both suspense, good dialogue, as well as hints of magic. Rusty’s conversations with his dead grandfather are lovely, and all his characters have bucket-loads of charm … Bursting with attitude and humor, the pictures are as expressive as they are simple … recommended for anyone. The book is a highly charming tale of growing up, superheroes and the struggle for survival.”—Dagbladet
“In this enormously charming book we meet three little superheroes, each equipped with a bucket of paint … Øyvind Torseter’s beautiful drawings show us what it’s like to feel small and out of place in a big world. They also evoke the warmth of the friendship between the children. . . . Warmly recommended!”—Aftenposten
“The jury has rarely agreed so strongly about a decision as this one ... [Øvreås] writes so well for kids that you would think he has never done anything else ... a warm and bittersweet super hero story, which is also an excellent book to read together for kids and adults”—From the jury statement, Trollkrittet Prize (Norwegian Children's and YA Book Writers' debut prize)
“Brown is a warm and powerful story of friendship and courage, full of creativity and everyday magic.”—From the jury statement, Nordic Council Children's and Young People's Literature Prize
“Øvreås provides fast-paced prose with dry humor in both the narration and dialogue, but he also sensitively deals with Rusty’s sadness at the loss of his beloved grandfather, which is beautifully captured. The cartoon-style pen and ink illustrations by Torseter add real depth to the story in their humor and expressiveness of the characters.”—Deborah Hallford, Outside In World
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