This is a sensitive book, a classic in many countries, about a friendship between two boys and an old man.
There are plenty of old men who would do as a grandfather at the retirement home, Ulf suggests, when Berra wonders why he doesn't have one. They go there together to find one - ideally one who eats pig's trotters, invites you to tea and who can teach you to whistle.
Together, the words and illustrations... tell a story that is sad and happy at the same time. It's a story that makes sense to everyone who ever had - or wanted - a grandfather.
-- The School Magazine (NSW)This is an extraordinarily tender, beautiful story of friendship and loss. Stark combines searing poignancy with joyous humour and the most lyrical phrases to produce a quirky, endearing story that deeply touches the heart
-- The Sunday Tasmanian (AU)This story touches the heart. It manages to be charming, warm, funny, poignant and sad all at once and it's told in such a way that a grandparent can reminisce and a young person can understand about friendship and loss not just through their own eyes but through the perspective of a much older person.
-- PETAStarred review. A sweet, tender, never maudlin evocation of an intergenerational friendship.
-- Kirkus Reviews5+ One of those rare perfect ones.
-- Youth Services Book ReviewCan You Whistle, Johanna?... is a heartwarming and emotional tale of human connection, and its importance at any age.
-- NetGalley ReviewerA book that demands to be shared and enjoyed.
-- IBBY UKUlf Stark was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1944. He has written around thirty books for children and young adults, translated into more than twenty languages. He has won many prizes in Sweden and internationally, including the German Youth Literature Prize and the Astrid Lindgren Prize, and he was shortlisted for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2018.
Anna Hoglund has illustrated a number of Ulf Stark's books. She lives and works in New York. Winner of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, awarded to authors of children's and teenage literature for outstanding works.