1988

Lights in your eyes

1989

A calf for Christmas

1989

The Christmas carp/ Tom’s Christmas Fish

1989

The zoo

1990

The Kestrel

1991

Göran’s great escape

1991

The old house on the dune

1993

Chatting with Jona

1993

The old musician

1994

Een verhaal voor Hizzel

1994

In the Land of Twilight

1995

In summers

1995

Small story about love

1998

Heroes on socks

2003

The red bird

2001

You’re the loveliest

2005

Pikkuhenki

2006

The story journey

2007

Blowing bubbles in Burundi

2008

I stay always with you

2009

What nobody had expected

2010

You and me and my red bike

2011

My journey

2013

Bigger than a dream

2014

Charlie’s magical carnival

2015

Strange inventions

2017

The Island of happiness

2018

Wake Up, Let’s Play

2019

Now that Night is Near

2022

Tortoise and Me

Tortoise and Me

From the site of the Dutch foundation for literature:

Very occasionally a book comes along that you hope will become a classic, not only in the Netherlands, but also in the rest of the world. This is one of those books. It tells the story of a boy who gets a young tortoise as a present from his grandfather.

That tortoise grows bigger and bigger. At first, everyone thinks it’s funny. They just need to knock a hole in the wall next to the door so that he can come in. But when his owner grows up and can’t find a girlfriend because of his clumsy housemate, he decides to return the animal to the country where he was born. He comes back home with much more than he left with.

Törnqvist has found a beautiful, light and accessible metaphor for a topical and painful issue, in which a tortoise reminds us what it means to be human.

Shortlist De Boon literature Award, Belgium:

Words of the jury:
Tortoise and Me by Marit Törnqvist has only one problem. It's too beautiful. The illustrations are beautiful. You want frame each page. The story is of a moving beauty. The turtle that is not just any pet but a metaphor for everything you silently carry with you. What makes you who you are but might as well become a burden.  Every page you turn you're afraid that this imagery is going to get stuck, but it never does. A little gem.