The Journey to the End of the World

Its place in Joel Gustafson

The Journey to the End of the World is book 4 in the Joel Gustafson series. It follows When the Snow Fell. See the full Joel Gustafson reading order.

Before Kurt Wallander made him internationally famous, Henning Mankell wrote a quartet of novels for younger readers about Joel Gustafson, a boy of eleven growing up in a small town in the far north of Sweden with only his father, a widowed lumberjack, for company. Beginning with A Bridge to the Stars (1990), the books follow Joel through the ordinary, formative texture of a lonely childhood -- keeping a secret list of things he intends to do before he turns twelve, forming an intense private friendship with a…