Easy Finnish literature

All people have the right to read: to go on adventures, to travel to new worlds, to get information and experience things on the pages of a book. Easy-to-read literature opens books for groups of readers for whom standard language literature is too difficult or impossible to read.

Regardless, anyone can pick up an easy-to-read book which can be of tremendous use to those who are not accustomed to reading or do not have the energy for it.

Easy-to-read books make reading fun

Easy-to-read books are written in Easy Language, which makes them easier to read. They are also shorter than standard books. Easy-to-read books can be identified by the SELKO symbol, an arrow shaped like the letter S. The SELKO symbol is granted by the working group for easy-to-read literature.

Easy-to-read literature can be read just for fun or entertainment, but it can also be easily used in Finnish language studies or in describing the Finnish culture and in inspiring discussion and receiving information.

There are two types of easy-to-read books. Some easy-to-read books are written directly in Easy Language while some are edited from standard language. For example, there is an Easy Language adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Books published in Easy Language include detective stories, sci-fi, fantasy, romance novels, classics, horror stories and modern literature. The topics of easy-to-read non-fiction books include e.g. climate change, mushrooms, space, robots and dogs.

In Finland, non-fiction easy-to-read books are published in both Finnish and Swedish. We promote the publication of easy-to-read books and support their publishers with easy-to-read literature discretionary government grants delegated to us by the Ministry of Education and Culture. We organise events and campaigns that promote easy-to-read literature and publish information on easy-to-read books on our website and social media. However, we do not publish easy-to-read books ourselves.

Where can I find easy-to-read books?

Easy-to-read books are available in libraries, online stores, publishers’ online stores and even in some book stores. The following is a partial listing of resources for easy-to-read books in Finland:

Seesam Prize

The prize is granted every other year for achievements in the promotion of easy-to-read literature, to, for example writers, illustrators, translators, researchers or publishers.

The Seesam Prize is awarded by the Working Group of Easy-to-Read Literature. The prize has been awarded since 1992.

See a list of the winners on the Finnish-language pages of our website.

View easy-to-read books published in Finland in the database on easy-to-read literature (in Finnish).
Read more about state support for easy-to-read and other accessible literature (in Finnish).

Read our latest easy-to-read book brochure (in Easy Finnish and Easy Swedish).

Picture: Markus Itkonen