Tove Jansson Tales from Moomin Valley (1962)
I was given the Puffin boxed set of five books one Christmas as a kid, and now that I think about it, those Moomin books were probably the only books I actually read under my own steam, excepting Who novelisations and anything with a lot more pictures. Although the box has long vanished, I kept hold of those books - Exploits of Moominpapa and the rest - and even ended up reading from them to my stepson back when he was at bedtime story age. Moomins have therefore been imprinted on me from the beginning and have been with me most of my life; so it was quite a shock when I found this, having assumed there were only ever six books, with the other one being Moominland in November which I never had. It was a shock but naturally I had to buy it, feeling I sort of owed it to my much younger self to read the thing.
I knew I'd enjoy it, possibly as an exercise in nostalgia, but I'm surprised at how much, and how moving I found it. Jansson's Moomin books seem unlike anything else to be found in childrens' literature, at least so far as I am aware, in capturing a much more rounded impression of childhood experience. Of course, there's the fun, the silliness, the jokes, the brightly coloured characters, and the occasional lesson of a bedtime without supper, but Jansson contrasts her springs and summers with grey skies and the terrible roar of the sea crashing on stony beaches - not as anything deliberately fearful, but simply because it's part of the experience. You can really feel the north Atlantic wind blasting through this landscape, and it provides welcome definition to the warmth of hearth and home. Her most interesting characters seem to be those who prefer solitude and silence, which I guess was something I really needed to hear when I was a kid. Her books are the opposite of Disney's version of childhood, and should be considered as being right up there with the rest of the proper stuff, Alice, Dorothy, Asterix, Tintin and the others.
I was given the Puffin boxed set of five books one Christmas as a kid, and now that I think about it, those Moomin books were probably the only books I actually read under my own steam, excepting Who novelisations and anything with a lot more pictures. Although the box has long vanished, I kept hold of those books - Exploits of Moominpapa and the rest - and even ended up reading from them to my stepson back when he was at bedtime story age. Moomins have therefore been imprinted on me from the beginning and have been with me most of my life; so it was quite a shock when I found this, having assumed there were only ever six books, with the other one being Moominland in November which I never had. It was a shock but naturally I had to buy it, feeling I sort of owed it to my much younger self to read the thing.
I knew I'd enjoy it, possibly as an exercise in nostalgia, but I'm surprised at how much, and how moving I found it. Jansson's Moomin books seem unlike anything else to be found in childrens' literature, at least so far as I am aware, in capturing a much more rounded impression of childhood experience. Of course, there's the fun, the silliness, the jokes, the brightly coloured characters, and the occasional lesson of a bedtime without supper, but Jansson contrasts her springs and summers with grey skies and the terrible roar of the sea crashing on stony beaches - not as anything deliberately fearful, but simply because it's part of the experience. You can really feel the north Atlantic wind blasting through this landscape, and it provides welcome definition to the warmth of hearth and home. Her most interesting characters seem to be those who prefer solitude and silence, which I guess was something I really needed to hear when I was a kid. Her books are the opposite of Disney's version of childhood, and should be considered as being right up there with the rest of the proper stuff, Alice, Dorothy, Asterix, Tintin and the others.
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