Tove Jansson's "Moomin" newspaper strip

I've just received the newly published volume three of the planned five volumes of Tove Janssons complete "Moomin" newspaper strip. She wrote and drew this series in the 1950s after her illustrated Moomin books had become a hit, and a British newspaper asked her to do it as a daily newspaper strip.

I remember reprints of this series in my local newspaper during my childhood in the late 1970s, but it's been mostly forgotten in the English speaking world, and it's never been relased in the US until now.

And it's a complete delight. strange, moody and surreal, this is not solely a comic strip for kids , it often has quite grown up sensibility. And it's also quite timeless. It reads as well now as it must have done in the fifties.

I'd defititely recommend this wonderful series to just about everyone. You can read the first story from the first volume online. It's and early story, still quite episodic, and most of the supporting cast hasn't been introduced yet, but you can still get a sense of the wonderful weirdness that lurks within these books: STORY HERE


"A lost treasure now rediscovered--one of the sweetest, strangest comics strips ever drawn or written. A surrealist masterpiece. Honest." --Neil Gaiman

"[Jansson's] work soars with lightness and speed, and her drawings only echo her writing: delicate but precise, observant yet suggestive... Jansson was exceptional, an exuberant explorer of emotional independence and interdependence, a liberating force." --Los Angeles Times Book Review

Shopping for books in Sweden

A few days ago I was reading the reader questions on Richard Thompson's homepage, and he was asked - because he's from the UK and tours Europe and currently resides in the US - about the difference between the US and European education system.

Part of his reply:

"I would say that European kids know more, generally speaking, than US kids. One reason is that they spend more time per year in school – by age 18, they’ve had a year’s extra schooling. They seem a year or two years ahead by university level. Background culture, I believe, plays a big part. Most European kids speak 2 or 3 languages, which is just the reality of having all those countries jammed up next to each other, and learning languages is very good for the neural pathways. French, Italian, German families all eat together, and discuss things like politics and culture. TV in Europe doesn’t talk down to you as it tends to in the US, and advertising doesn’t assume you are an idiot. " (source)

Anyway, his answer made me want to act more like a proper European and read more stuff in European languages. That basically means Swedish and German, which are the two languages where I understand about... I dunno, 60-80% if I concentrate. I should get into a habit of reading more in those languages so I can get that percentage even higher.

So yesterday I went shopping in Sweden. The town Malmö is just on the other side of the water near Copenhagen, and now that the new bridge across the water was opened a few years ago, the city of Copenhagen and the town of Malmö are slowly growing into one big multi-lingual metropolitan area, with people moving freely across the bridge to shop and work.

These are some of the books I bought in Swedish in Sweden:

"Ronja Röverdotter" / "Ronia, the Robber's Daughter" by Astrid Lindgren is one of the all time great fantasy books for kids. In Europe this (and her other childrens fantasy novel "The Brothers Lionheart") are even more popular than her Pippi Longstocking books. In The US they're relatively unknown, though. But at least they're both in print at the moment, so US readers of this blog with kids should check them out.


I look forward to reading "Sent i November" ("Moominvalley in November"), the last book, and apparently the most existential and melancholic, in the moomin series. The Swedish cover art is beautiful. Tove Jansson was a great graphic artist too. The current US edition of her Moomin newspaper strips is an absolutely must-buy: