Nordic Book Flood in Panevėžys Library

Neither the pandemic nor the booming summer 2021 prevented the team of Panevėžys County Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė Public Library from organising the interactive exhibition Nordic Children’s Book Flood. According to the Library Director Jurgita Bugailiškienė, the exhibition organised together with the Nordic Council of Ministers Office in Lithuania has provided a space to talk about literature in an engaging and different way.

The first Nordic Children’s Book Flood was held in Iceland in 2018 when celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Nordic House. After that, the exhibition travelled to Latvia, and last year the baton was passed onto the Panevėžys County Library.

According to the authors of the original idea, the Nordic Children’s Book Flood is an adventurous cognitive journey on a symbolic boat brought to a library by the tide. Nordic fictional characters invite you on their journey through the exhibition to bottle fishing in order to learn interesting facts about the Vikings, meet famous adventurous Nordic women, as well as find out where the characters of the most popular Nordic books come from.

Sails have long awaited the books

“We started talking about this Flood in 2019. There are sails, an architectural solution, on the second floor of our library, so we used to joke that such sails could not stay without a boat for much longer. That’s how that Viking ship with all the Nordic books arrived to us. But in reality, the story is much more from this earthly world ,” says Jurgita.

I was thinking about how to present fiction to children, how to talk and to work with them, I was always looking of some bigger, more attractive ideas. After seeing the first exhibition in Iceland, I thought it was my dream come through. We are very glad that the Nordic Council of Ministers Office in Lithuania entrusted us with this,” says the Head of the Library.

As Jurgita’s colleagues participated in the opening of the Nordic Book Exhibition in Latvia, the neighbours passed on their knowledge and encouraged to do the same in Lithuania.

Inspired by Nordic literature

“Like all child visitors, we too were most impressed by the space associated with the Vikings, their history, way of life and literature. Each of the seven literary halls in the exhibition carried an individual message.

The co-created wall of heroes combined stories with children’s art, thus Nordic fiction heroes got revived thanks to the local authors. For example, we used the story of Pippi Longstocking to talk about other famous and accomplished women. That year, we celebrated the 160th birth anniversary of Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė, therefore we also wanted to show Bitė, and her passion for life, and how she cared about women’s rights in that same part of the exhibition,” emphasises Jurgita.

Jurgita, the Head of the Library with a degree in bibliology, is open about the fact that Nordic fiction has been accompanying her since she was a child.

“There is much more mutual understanding and peace in it. Of course, it is also about human relationships and harmonious being. Much attention is paid to the origin of people and folklore. In the works of the Nordic writers, this deep tradition is very much reflected as they draw impulses for their modern stories out of it,” believes Jurgita.