Anne-Catharina Vestly

All you want to know about Anne-Catharina Vestly

Anne-Catharina Vestly (born 15 February 1920), is a Norwegian author of children’s literature.

Her first book, Phenomena, appeared in 1953, and Vestly has written numerous adult books, mostly about everyday family life in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. She challenged the traditional gender roles in the Aurora series (1966–1972), when she wrote about a family where the mother worked as a lawyer, while the father, an ancient history Ph.D. candidate, stayed home with their two children.

Her most famous book is Åtte små, to store og en lastebil (Eight little ones, two big ones and a truck, 1957), about a family with eight children living in a small apartment in Oslo. This book is the first in a series of nine books, the last one from 2000, about this family and the children’s grandmother. The series is known as Mormor og de åtte ungene (Grandma and the eight children), and is one of the most famous Norwegian book series for children.

Vestly has also worked as an actress, most famously playing grandma in the TV- and screen versions of her Grandma and the eight children-books. She also co-starred with Alf Prøysen in Kanutten og Romeo Klive (1963), a popular kids show for television.

She married Johan Vestly in 1946. He illustrated all her books until his death in 1993.

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