Animals No One Has Seen Except Us
By
Linda Bondestam
Ulf Stark
Author Ulf Stark’s and illustrator Linda Bondestam’s book about animals that no one has seen has been called a modern classic.
This illustrated book presents 27 species which no one but their creators have ever seen – in splendid colors and with ingenious rhymes.
About the author
Linda Bondestam (b.1977) studied to become an illustrator at Kingston University in the United Kingdom.Bondestam has illustrated dozens of children’s books for Finnish and Swedish publishers, and her books have been translated into several languages including Arabic, Belorussian, Croatian, Danish, English, Finnish, German, Latvian, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Turkish and Ukrainian. She is one of the most prominent children’s book illustrators in the Nordic countries.She has been nominated for the prestigious Finlandia Junior Prize three times, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award six times. She has also been recognized with nominations for the Nordic Council’s Children and Young People’s Literature Prize in 2013 and 2021, and the August Prize in 2016, 2019 and 2021.Bondestam’s collaboration with Ulf Stark on Animals That No One Has Seen Except Us was awarded the Snöbollen Prize for Swedish Picture Book of the Year in 2016, and the Nordic Council’s Children and Young People’s Literature Prize in 2017. Bondestam was also the first recipient of the Vanessa Prize (Vanessapriset) in 2016. Bondestam’s own title, My Life at The Bottom, was a pick for the White Raven Catalogue in 2021. Bondestam's picture book Chop Chop earned her the 2025 August Prize - Swedish Children’s Book of the Year.She has been sitting on chair number 11 in the Swedish Children’s Book Academy since 2019.
Author page
Ulf Stark (1944-2017) is one of Sweden’s most popular authors and his works have been translated into over 30 languages. Since 1975, Stark wrote almost 100 children’s and young adult books and was awarded many times both in Sweden and internationally, among his awards the Astrid Lindgren Prize of 1993, and the August Prize of 1996.He was nominated for the August Prize again in 2016 for the picture book Animals No One Has Seen Except Us, illustrated by Linda Bondestam. The same book won the Snowball Prize in Sweden and the Nordic Prize for Children’s Literature in 2017.
Author page
