In Minnesota, there's the old joke that "diversity" is when Swedes and Norwegians live together. So Minnesota should be proud that Scandinavians are quite the literary sensations recently. Most popular, perhaps, are the Swedes: There's that ubiquitous girl with the dragon tattoo, of course, and the mysteries of Henning Mankell and Asa Larsson, to name just a few.

But Minnesota's own Graywolf Press has been working to hold up the Norwegians as deserving of literary attention, as well. Graywolf published the widely praised "Out Stealing Horses" by Norwegian writer Per Petterson, and now is releasing a translation of "Child Wonder," a novel by acclaimed Norwegian writer Roy Jacobsen (translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw).

"Child Wonder" is set in the 1960s, in a housing estate outside Oslo. Our narrator is a young boy named Finn, who -- like many young first-person narrators before him -- does not fully understand all he describes to us.

At the opening of the novel, Finn is close to his mother, who is raising him by herself, but events begin to occur that Finn cannot explain. His mother advertises for a lodger to supplement their income, and in the process attracts a visit from an unhinged woman. His mother agrees to take in the woman's child, a little girl named Linda, who is supposedly Finn's half-sister. Finn is "left with quite a tangible feeling that there were sides to Mother of which I had little understanding. ... I was not only facing an insoluble riddle but a riddle to which I perhaps never wanted to find a solution."

Faced with the sudden responsibility of a little sister, Finn does his best to look out for Linda, even as he grows to suspect that there might be something wrong with the silent girl. His mother's secrets, and Finn's desire to shield Linda from cruelty at school, eventually erupt into violence and tragedy.

Finn is an engaging narrator -- naive, but sharply observant. There's a curious quirk to the writing, however: a preponderance of run-on sentences. For example: "Next day I also came straight back from school, this time I found Mother at her post, ready to receive Ingrid Olaussen, and at once I got down to preparing myself, motivated by a number of reproving cautions, as though we were about to take an exam, quite unnecessary it goes without saying, if there was anything I had taken of board, it was the seriousness of the matter." This makes the writing distinctive but often serves to obfuscate the story.

Still, the recognizably human plight of Finn -- his struggle to do the right thing even with limited information and resources -- makes the novel work: It's a moving account of childhood coming to an end.

Laura C.J. Owen went to school in Minnesota and now lives in Tucson, Ariz. Read more of her writing at www.lauracjowen.com.