(“Fjodor goes bananas” – Damm 2006)

One day Palle’s father comes home from the deap seas with the naughty cod Fjodor in his bag. Fjodor really needs some repair, but who shall look after him afterwards, when Palle’s father must return to the sea? Palle of course.

This book is available at bokkilden.no.

Watch the reading videos on YouTube

English test translation of chapter 2:

This is Fjodor

Palle’s daddy is a repairer.
He repairs what has to be repaired,
from the Caspian Sea to the Nordic Sea.
from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.

Sometimes he even repairs at home.

“This mackerel cannot be repaired anymore”,
daddy says and puts a complete piece
of bread with mackerel in tomatoesauce
at once in his mouth.

Daddy looks very smart
while he tells a little about
what he has done recently.

He has helped a whale
to find his way up to England.
He has taken out a hook
of the tail of a flounder.

“Enough”, daddy says
and claps on his belly.

Something is moving inside the bag now.
“Tell me what’s in there!”,
Palle moans.

Daddy chews and thinks,
but that doesn’t look like he was listening.
“No, I have to work a little now”,
he just says and takes the bag with him
into the workshop.

Palle is disappointed.

Daddy is standing up from the table and walks away,
without showing what he has brought with him!
And so there is nothing left to Palle
but to clear the table alone.

“Can you come in here a little, Palle?”,
daddy is suddenly asking.

Now it is Palle who pretends
he wasn’t listening.
But then daddy is standing in the door.

“But there you are”, he says.
“Don’t you want to come in
and see what I have brought here?”

The workshop is actually
the most funny place Palle knows.

There is the power saw and the tape,
hammer and pincers and little pins
that you can hardly see.
And a complete shelf with stones
from the ground of the Eastchinese Sea.

“Yes, sure, I’m coming”, Palle says
and is running in to daddy.
Daddy carefully opens the bag
so Palle can see.
Two eyes are staring at them.
“This is Fjodor”, daddy says
and lifts up a huge cod.

Fjodor is staring with big eyes.
First at all the tools
and the postcards on the wall.
Then at daddy and Palle.
“Who’s that little guy there?”,
Fjodor says yawning.
“This is Palle”, daddy says.