Hotel Kosmos

Maia is eleven and for the second summer in a row she’s going with her parents to a holiday park called Hotel Kosmos. Despite the bad weather, they try to repeat the enjoyable holiday they had last year. But even if you do all the same things, you can’t stave off the inevitable. Maia’s parents are not getting along well. While her parents try to find out whether there’s any way to save their marriage, Maia gets to know new friends. There’s Hugo, the parkkeeper, who loves animals just like she does, tough-looking Signe at reception, and the Daltons, the cheerful family with seven children in the chalet next to theirs.

In this moving book, Yelena Schmitz succeeds in incorporating Maia’s sorrow into a real holiday story. Often using short sentences and leaving a lot of blank space on the page, she depicts a child who is trying to enjoy a carefree holiday (and a first experience of falling in love) in the midst of a storm. The holiday park itself has as many faults as her parents’ marriage, which beautifully accentuates the tragicomedy of the whole situation. In expressive language and without attempting to make everything explicit, Schmitz depicts Maia as a brave girl who is afraid of what’s coming, but who looks at the world with humour and a love of the absurd.