The Girl Who Brought Mischief by Katrina Nannestad

JUDGES' COMMENTS 

Set in 1911 in Denmark, The Girl Who Brought Mischief is about an orphaned ten-year-old girl, Inge Maria, sent to live with a fiercely stern grandmother on an isolated island in the Baltic Sea. Such familiar storytelling terrain recalls classics such as Anne of Green Gables and perhaps Pippi Longstocking, yet The Girl Who Brought Mischief does not stand in their shadows. Unforced warmth and genuine laugh-out-loud wit flow from its pages with an effortlessness that makes The Girl Who Brought Mischief a book to be treasured too.

Inge Maria, the slightly scruffy, clog-wearing protagonist, was once a citizen of modern and urbane Copenhagen. Ferried to the rural island of Bornholm when her mother dies, Inge Maria’s life is changing beyond recognition. Yet her arrival on the island brings surprising changes to the lives of the island’s inhabitants as the newcomer creates a stir with her irrepressible, calamity-prone antics. Around her, hearts that had gone stony with time and drudgery are sparked and warmed once more. Along with slyly knowing observations of human nature, there is a whimsical sensitivity to all things in The Girl Who Brought Mischief. Milk jugs and spoons are thanked for their help and barnyard fowl and animals are engaging characters, without actually being anthropomorphised. All of this results in a joyful and deeply humane book that beautifully illustrates the resilience of the heart.

Katrina Nannestad’s narrative in the authentic voice of a ten-year-old girl captures Inge’s youth and naivety, while also underscoring profound issues of grief, family, belonging and community. There is subtlety in the development of the characters of Inge and her grandmother as they gradually build a loving relationship of trust and appreciation. The rich setting of a rural Danish island in 1911 is evoked beautifully as Inge and her friend Klaus visit its inhabitants and explore the countryside. One of the demands of children’s literature is that clarity of expression – no matter the subject matter – be achieved with simplicity. While a seeming lack of complexity can be confused with a lack of sophistication, to portray life richly yet simply requires considerable wit, instinct, imagination and skill. It is an art that belies its sophistication, and The Girl Who Brought Mischief is a telling example of this.