Knots

A School Library Journal Best Book of 2024! In this semiautobiographical graphic novel from award-winning cartoonist Colleen Frakes, Norah must navigate not just her foiled dreams of blond hair but also the tangled mess her family has become. Norah is the good kid. Good at pleasing her parents and being a good sister. Good at school. Good at, well, almost everything. So when Mom’s work brings her to a new town leaving Norah and Dad behind, no one thinks twice. After all, Norah’s a mature sixth grader who can take care of herself…right? But things spiral out of control after a botched home dye job goes wrong and being the good kid quickly gets a little…hairy. Before long, one small tangle becomes a knot of epic proportions, and Norah soon realizes that the only way to untangle the mess she’s made is to find her voice and ask for help. Perfect for fans of Just Pretend and Crunch , Knots is sure to have readers laughing (and cringing) along with Norah’s antics. PRAISE FOR KNOTS: Bookshop.org's Best of Kids Graphic Novels (2024)

A School Library Journal Best Book of 2024! In this semiautobiographical graphic novel from award-winning cartoonist Colleen Frakes, Norah must navigate not just her foiled dreams of blond hair but also the tangled mess her family has become. Norah is the good kid. Good at pleasing her parents and being a good sister. Good at school. Good at, well, almost everything. So when Mom’s work brings her to a new town leaving Norah and Dad behind, no one thinks twice. After all, Norah’s a mature sixth grader who can take care of herself…right? But things spiral out of control after a botched home dye job goes wrong and being the good kid quickly gets a little…hairy. Before long, one small tangle becomes a knot of epic proportions, and Norah soon realizes that the only way to untangle the mess she’s made is to find her voice and ask for help. Perfect for fans of Just Pretend and Crunch , Knots is sure to have readers laughing (and cringing) along with Norah’s antics. PRAISE FOR KNOTS: Bookshop.org's Best of Kids Graphic Novels (2024)

A series of dialogue-scenarios, which can be read as poems or plays, describing the knots and impasses in various kinds of human relationships.

A series of dialogue-scenarios, which can be read as poems or plays, describing the knots and impasses in various kinds of human relationships.

First published in Norway in 2004, Knots is Gunnhild Oyehaug's radical collection of short stories that range from the surreal to the oddly mundane, and prod the discomforts of mental, sexual, and familial bonds. In both precise short-shorts and ruminative longer tales, Oyehaug meanders through the tangled, jinxed, and unavoidable conflicts of love and desire. From young Rimbaud's thwarted passions to the scandalous disappearance of an entire family, these stories do the chilling work of tracing the outlines of what could have been in both the quietly morbid and the delightfully comical. A young man is born with an uncuttable umbilical cord and spends his life physically tethered to his mother; a tipsy uncle makes an uncomfortable toast with unforeseeable repercussions; and a dissatisfied deer yearns to be seen. As one character reflects, "You never know how things might turn out, you never know how anything will turn out, tomorrow the walls might fall down, and the room disappear." Cleverly balancing the sensuous, the surreal, and the comical, Oyehaug achieves a playful familiarity with the absurd that never overreaches the needs of her stories. Full of characters who can't help tying knots in themselves and each other, these tales make the world just a little more strange, and introduce a major international voice of searing vision, grace, and humour.

First published in Norway in 2004, Knots is Gunnhild Oyehaug's radical collection of short stories that range from the surreal to the oddly mundane, and prod the discomforts of mental, sexual, and familial bonds. In both precise short-shorts and ruminative longer tales, Oyehaug meanders through the tangled, jinxed, and unavoidable conflicts of love and desire. From young Rimbaud's thwarted passions to the scandalous disappearance of an entire family, these stories do the chilling work of tracing the outlines of what could have been in both the quietly morbid and the delightfully comical. A young man is born with an uncuttable umbilical cord and spends his life physically tethered to his mother; a tipsy uncle makes an uncomfortable toast with unforeseeable repercussions; and a dissatisfied deer yearns to be seen. As one character reflects, "You never know how things might turn out, you never know how anything will turn out, tomorrow the walls might fall down, and the room disappear." Cleverly balancing the sensuous, the surreal, and the comical, Oyehaug achieves a playful familiarity with the absurd that never overreaches the needs of her stories. Full of characters who can't help tying knots in themselves and each other, these tales make the world just a little more strange, and introduce a major international voice of searing vision, grace, and humour.

A School Library Journal Best Book of 2024! In this semiautobiographical graphic novel from award-winning cartoonist Colleen Frakes, Norah must navigate not just her foiled dreams of blond hair but also the tangled mess her family has become. Norah is the good kid. Good at pleasing her parents and being a good sister. Good at school. Good at, well, almost everything. So when Mom's work brings her to a new town leaving Norah and Dad behind, no one thinks twice. After all, Norah's a mature sixth grader who can take care of herself...right? But things spiral out of control after a botched home dye job goes wrong and being the good kid quickly gets a little...hairy. Before long, one small tangle becomes a knot of epic proportions, and Norah soon realizes that the only way to untangle the mess she's made is to find her voice and ask for help. Perfect for fans of Just Pretend and Crunch , Knots is sure to have readers laughing (and cringing) along with Norah's antics. PRAISE FOR KNOTS: Bookshop.org's Best of Kids Graphic Novels (2024)

A School Library Journal Best Book of 2024! In this semiautobiographical graphic novel from award-winning cartoonist Colleen Frakes, Norah must navigate not just her foiled dreams of blond hair but also the tangled mess her family has become. Norah is the good kid. Good at pleasing her parents and being a good sister. Good at school. Good at, well, almost everything. So when Mom's work brings her to a new town leaving Norah and Dad behind, no one thinks twice. After all, Norah's a mature sixth grader who can take care of herself...right? But things spiral out of control after a botched home dye job goes wrong and being the good kid quickly gets a little...hairy. Before long, one small tangle becomes a knot of epic proportions, and Norah soon realizes that the only way to untangle the mess she's made is to find her voice and ask for help. Perfect for fans of Just Pretend and Crunch , Knots is sure to have readers laughing (and cringing) along with Norah's antics. PRAISE FOR KNOTS: Bookshop.org's Best of Kids Graphic Novels (2024)