The Ape Star

Author: Nilsson, Frida

General fiction (Children's / Teenage)

Published on 1 August 2022 by Gecko Press in New Zealand.

Paperback | 200 pages, 20 black and white illustrations
145 x 204 x 17 | 364g

Jonna lives in an orphanage whose manager is strict and obsessed with cleanliness. Like all the other children, Jonna has only one dream: to be adopted by a well-dressed mother who smells of perfume. But one day, a beat-up old car pulls up. The door opens and out step two thick hairy legs with muddy boots, followed by a belly as round as a barrel, and finally, a head like an overgrown pear. It's a gorilla! Surely the orphanage won't let a gorilla adopt a child. But, to Jonna's horror, the gorilla chooses her...

Jonna sleeps in a hammock, and in the evenings the gorilla reads Dickens in her worn armchair. It turns out Jonna and the gorilla have a lot in common. But just when they've started to get along, a man from the council threatens to send Jonna back to the orphanage.

The Ape Star is a heartwarming and unconventional chapter book about love, adoption, friendship, and seeing from different perspectives.

An animated adaption starring Stellan Skarsgard (Thor: Ragnarok, Mamma Mia) is now showing worldwide.

'Nilsson has a peculiar power to make you remember exactly what it was like to be small, fierce, disempowered and six.' The Times UK on Hattie'A sparkling story' Kirkus Reviews on Hattie and Olaf'The Ice Sea Pirates is a wild adventure with a huge heart...a beautiful book singing with hope and justice.' Sarah Driver of The Huntress