"I wish I’d written every single one of Tove Jansson’s Moomin series, but forced to choose I’ll pick number five, Moominland Midwinter, because it’s darker and more introspective than the earlier books, with just a hint of delicious danger. This is a hilarious and tender tale that you will never grow out of. Tove Jansson is a genius and believe me, this book is proof!"
Katy Guest, literary editor for The Independent on Sunday on the Moomin books: "A fantasy series for small children that introduces bigger ones to ideas of adventure, dealing with fear, understanding character and tolerating difference."
Soon to be MOOMINVALLEY, a MAJOR ANIMATED SERIES on SKY ONE starring Taron Egerton and Rosamund Pike!
'This is snow,' Moomintroll whispered to himself.
Moomins always sleep through the winter - or they did until the year Moomintroll woke up and found he couldn't go back to sleep again.
All the clocks had stopped, there was nothing to eat and no one to talk to at home, so he went out - straight into the first snowdrift he had ever seen.
The valley wasn't green any more, it was white and silent and very scary. But then Moomintroll spied some tracks in the snow and decided to follow them. Maybe he wasn't the only one awake in Moominvalley after all?
Tove Jansson (1914 – 2001), was born in 1914 in Helingsfors, Finland. Her mother was a charicaturist and the designer of many of Finland’s stamps, and her father was a sculptor. Tove studied painting in Finland, Sweden and France and later worked as a book illustrator, a designer and strip cartoonist, as well as being involved in theatre décor and making frescoes in public places. She drew her first Moomin in the 1930s, just for fun, to tease her little brother by drawing the ugliest creature she could think of. Moomin developed a nicer snout and character and in 1939 he became a character in a children’s story. The Finn Family Moomingtroll has been a hugely successful book, translated into many languages – many other Moomin stories followed.
In 1966 Tove Jansson was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal – an international award for the best children’s book of the year.
Most of the books were written on a small island in the Gulf of Finland where Tove, her mother and brother were the only inhabitants. Later Tove continued to live alone on the island - It takes an hour to row to the nearest island. Some years ago she wrote of the island:
‘It is so small you can walk around it in ten minutes. It is shaped like an atoll and surrounds a deep lake which in good weather makes a fine swimming pool, but in bad weather turns into a raging torrent surrounded by waterfalls. Then our boat has to be pulled right up to the house and tied to the veranda. We only have one tree, a rowan, which bloomed for the first time last summer. But we plant wild roses in the crevices, and potatoes. And we fish. We use rainwater for our coffee and driftwood for our fires. My favourite weather is fog, when the island seems to be afloat at the very end of the world in perfect silence and solitude. Only rarely does one hear the foghorns from the open sea where big ships go by for foreign countries.’
In this very special, beautiful and challenging environment Tove’s imagination and artistic talent flourished.
