The famous poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg lives in Porvoo, and there is always a throng of admirers beneath the great man’s windows. His name and fame has even spread as far as Doghill.

On a visit to relatives in Porvoo, Martha enjoys a huge slice of good luck. With her cousins she is admitted
into the Runeberg household to help the poet’s wife Fredrika in baking her famous tarts.

Runeberg regularly hosts gatherings whose guests include the folklorist Elias Lönnrot (collector of the national
epic Kalevala), the statesman-philosopher Johan Wilhelm Snellman, and the writer of fairy-tales Zacharias Topelius. Little Martha is privileged to make the acquaintance of the distinguished visitors and to see at fi rst hand the awakening of a movement to promote Finnish culture and literature – the beginnings of an independent Finland.

Between the lines and pictures of his delightful illustrated tale, Mauri Kunnas describes how it was that the Finnish language and being Finnish became socially acceptable in the latter half of the 19th century. He gives his inimitable and good-humoured treatment to a host of contemporary fi gures and institutions that played a part in shaping the
country and its identity.

Mauri Kunnas’s books have been translated into more than 25 languages.