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The house
Growing Up Nordic is an independent children's publishing house based in Finland.
We release a small number of books each year, on the rhythm of the seasons. Each book is made to be kept. Hardcover picture books and seasonal PlayBooks for children aged three to seven.
What Nordic means here
Nordic is not a mood. It is a way of marking the year.
The Finnish calendar holds eight seasons, not four. Early spring, spring, early summer, high summer, late summer, autumn, winter, and the dark before the light returns. Our books follow this finer calendar.
Allemansrätten, the right to roam, treats the forest as common ground. Children belong outside. Nature is not a destination; it is the floor.
The mökki rhythm shapes how we think about childhood time. Long pauses between activities, quiet weeks, sauna, berries, and boredom that turns into imagination.
Lagom and sisu, just enough and quiet endurance, shape how we think about the books themselves. Restraint as a form of care.
And the long darkness is part of the world we write. Winter, indoor light, candlelight, stillness. We do not pretend childhood is only sunlit.
What we publish
Hardcover picture books for the family library. Seasonal PlayBooks, companions for the year that hold crafts, recipes, and small invitations to notice. Stories for slow moments and bedtime hours. Books printed on tactile cream paper, bound to lie flat, made to be passed from one child to the next.
The long view
Authors
D.I. Suikkanen
D.I. Suikkanen writes from Helsinki. She believes every puddle is an ocean and every pocket should be full of stones.
Aino M. Ketola
Aino Ketola writes from the Finnish countryside. She thinks the best stories are the ones that make a child laugh out loud, and that a stubborn rubber boot has as much to say as anyone.
The long view
We are not in a hurry. The catalogue grows slowly. Books return with their seasons. Readers find us when the time is right.
Letters from the North, our quiet newsletter, arrives when there is something worth saying.