Что дальше? Книга о Мюмле, Муми-тролле и малышке Мю

Moomin Picture Books #1

by Tove Jansson, Туве Янссон

Эта книга – настоящее сокровище, неизменно вызывающее восторг и детей, и взрослых!

Всемирно известная финская писательница Туве Янссон сочинила и проиллюстрировала её в 1952 году. Это не только очаровательная история о её любимых героях, рассказанная в стихах (и замечательно переведённая Натальей Шаховской!), но книжка-игра, создающая ни с чем не сравнимое волшебное пространство, в котором неразрывно сплетаются литературное и изобразительное мастерство писательницы. Вместе с Муми-троллем мы пройдем весь этот сказочный путь, помогая рыдающей Мюмле найти её сестрёнку – своенравную малышку Мю. И на каждой странице нас будет ждать загадка. Пускаясь в это нелёгкое путешествие, придется запастись воображением! Иначе как угадать, что дальше?!

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Fantasy, Fiction, Classics, Finnish Literature, Poetry

28 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Tove Jansson was born and died in Helsinki, Finland. As a Finnish citizen whose mother tongue was Swedish, she was part of the Swedish-speaking Finns minority. Thus, all her books were originally written in Swedish.

Although known first and foremost as an author, Tove Jansson considered her careers as author and painter to be of equal importance.

Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood (1945), during World War II. She said later that the war had depressed her, and she had wanted to write something naive and innocent. Besides the Moomin novels and short stories, Tove Jansson also wrote and illustrated four original and highly popular picture books.

Jansson's Moomin books have been translated into 33 languages.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most Swedish people know this brilliant nonsense poem, which in my humble opinion is as good as anything in Lewis Carroll. But it's so hard to convey the attraction of poetry to people who don't know the language. When you translate it, Tove Jansson's wonderful airy soufflé just falls flat.

In LARA, a new open source project which several Goodreads people are already contributing to, we're trying to find ways to get past this barrier. Open Chrome or Firefox if you aren't already in one of those browsers, and click here. You should see a screen which looks more or less like this:



Try moving your mouse around, hovering over things and clicking. You can listen to the poem a page at a time, a line at a time or a word at a time, see translations of lines and words, and get a list on the right hand side showing all the places where any given word occurs in the text.

Does it work? Is the magic starting to reach you? I'd love to hear what you think! And if any Swedish native speaker is interested in rerecording the audio, please message me... using our handy online tool, it will only take you a couple of hours.

Best wishes for the New Year from Mumindalen!

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A moomin picture book with rhyming text. Little my is missing, so moomin helps her sister Mymble search for her. On the way they meet lots of characters from Moomin valley. The illustrations are full page and very good, each page has a cut out part to look through to the next page and the reader is invited to guess what happens next. Wonderful colours, you wouldn’t think a colour palette of red, yellow, greyish blue, and dusky lilac would work well but it does and feels very Tove. Great illustrations and a really fun read, this is a story the reader feels they are taking part in. We loved the page where the hattifatteners are having tea. My daughter loved this one when she was small.

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book from the library because a GR friend had recommended, “Moomin: the complete Tove Jansson comic strip”. They didn’t have that, but they had this book. I do wish I had run across this book 30-35 years ago. Then my sons would have been at the age when I was always reading to them. I so much enjoyed it. I remember one of them marching up to me one day and saying, “read to me”. No having to twist their arms to be read to! This would have been a perfect book I think for when they were 3 or 4 years old. The pages were big and colorful, and the page that was to the right always had a hole in it or something like that so you could see part of the illustration on the next page. And the words would go something like, “Well, guess what happens to them NOW.” What with the rhyming of the words, and all the weird words, and the way the words were written (bold and plain font, printed and cursive) and just all the different things that went on in the pages I think any child would be entranced.

I would think parents of preschool age children should take a look at this book, and I would have to guess the other picture books of this series. As far as I can tell there are two others (there are a number of comic strip books:
• Who Will Comfort Toffle?
• The Dangerous Journey (Orig. Swedish Den farliga resan)

Notes:
• Here is a description of the book from the official Moomin website: The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My was the first Moomin picture book by Finnish author Tove Jansson, published in 1952 in Swedish. Moomintroll is taking milk back home to his mother, Moominmamma when he meets The Mymble who is searching for her missing sister Little My. Together the pair go looking for her. From: https://www.moomin.com/en/history/ This website has a lot of information on everything you might possibly want to know about Moomin including pictures of their theme parks.
• Here is a Wikipedia site on Tove Jansson (1914-2001), the Norwegian author of a number of well-respected/reviewed books, including those of the Moomin series (her creation): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tove_Ja...
• Great website, with all the Moomin books and short descriptions and pix of their front covers!: Nice little history and review of the Moomin cartoons and the author: https://www.thebookstall.com/book/978...

Review:
http://www.vintagechildrensbooksmykid...

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way this book looks. The format is beautiful, the die-cut pages are wonderful, the words are written in a whimsically non-uniform script. The book is great to look at. I'm not so big on the text. It's not that it's bad, it's just not really Moomins. It's the characters but not the feeling (except for the Moominmama part, that is what one would expect).

Normally Mymble is one of my two favorite Moomin characters, but what I like so much about her character isn't here. Instead this is just kind of a game of guess what happens next for kids, or maybe not game, is entertainment a better word? I'd rather if this game of what happens next were played with Mymble and Snufkin traveling along with the question of what sweetly melancholy event will they encounter next.

Once again I have inadvertadly deleted a review while writing it, so this is a little shorter than I mean for it to be. Going to this webpage has a very nice splash page taken from the pages of this book. It's really cute actually... http://www.moomin.com/eng/index.html

[Jinnie Stork · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genialiskt lekande med språket, bilder och berättelsen som form!

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this brilliant nonsense poem, which easily stands comparison with Lewis Carroll, Mumintroll is on his way home with a can of milk when he enters the dangerous-looking woods around nightfall:

Från mjölkbutiken, klockan fem
Ett litet mumintroll gick hem
En kanna full med mjölk han bar
Och vägen lång och kuslig var
Och vinden suckade och ven
I skogens alla mörka trän
Det var ej långt från skymningen
Vad tror du att det hände sen?

As on all the pages, the last line is Vad tror du att det hände sen?, "What do you think happened then?", and a piece of the next page has been cut away so that you can guess.

It looks like the chimney of a house... but it's not! You turn over and discover it's Mymlan, who's sitting and weeping (she's a very weepy character) because her little sister, My, has got herself lost. The kind and practical Mumin suggests that they look for her. And their bizarre advantures continue, as they, among other things, get sucked into a Hemul's vacuum cleaner, frighten a Filifjonk out of her wits, and are nearly electrocuted by Hattifnatts. It all rhymes and scans perfectly, in the most charming way.

In the end, they find their way back to Mumindalen. But... oh no! The milk's gone sour. Muminmamma isn't bothered, and says they're going to have raspberry cordial instead.

I cannot overstate what a wonderful book this is! I must know nearly the whole thing by heart, having read it about a million times.

.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love the Moomins so much! This rhyming story, strongly reminiscent of Dr. Seuss, has Moomintroll, the Mymble's Daughter, and Little My traveling trying to get home to Moominmamma with the milk she asked for. They see the Hemulen, the Fillyjonk, and others on their way. the pages are cut to give you a window into the next piece of the adventure, and asks you to guess what they're going to find next.

[KatRi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ihana! Kuvitus ja kirjan aukot kiehtovat pikku lukijaa loputtomiin, eikä aikuinen lukija voi olla pitämättä kirjan kotoisasta kielestä, jossa Mymmelillä on "kolttu juovikas" ja Hommuli "käyttää pölynimijää".

[Adrienne Blaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This interactive children’s books has specially cut pages that give readers a peek at what’s next while encouraging you to guess. It’s a great adventure book for a little one, maybe ages three and up. The pages are a bit delicate because of the cut outs, so it would be best with adult supervision for some kids.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burvīgas ilustrācijas un Ineses Zanderes atdzejojums🤍

[David Crumm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Surprisingly Interactive Adventure with Two of Jansson's Most Memorable Friends

This is second of two reviews I am posting to alert Goodreads friends to a terrific holiday gift for any children on your list—gorgeous, hardcover editions of Tove Jansson picture books produced with obvious love by the folks at the Canadian comic publisher Drawn & Quarterly.

Let me suggest you also read my longer post about the first of these two: Who Will Comfort Toffle? That first review, today, provides more background about my own lifelong love of these characters—and explains that these picture-books were not even available when I was a kid discovering the Moomin world 60 or so years ago. These are lovingly crafted editions dreamed up by other lifelong fans of Jansson's work—and bless them for doing so!

What makes this Mymble and Little My book so wonderful?

First of all, I'm impressed that Drawn & Quarterly invested in this remarkably crafted book, which contains literal "holes" and custom-cut "openings" that are part of the adventure in reading this book with kids. Through those holes and openings, we glimpse bits of upcoming adventures and may, in the first reading, be surprised at what we find on the next page. So, if you enjoy picture books with kids, this one is truly unique even in the physical printing, trimming and binding!

Then, from my earliest encounters with Jansson's world, I was fascinated with Mymble and her sister Little My—just as I was with the odd little Toffle, the focus of the other picture-book I recommend.

Mymble and My—based on reading about them in English translations of Jansson's original Moomin storybooks—always seemed to me to be two halves of the same person. Today, I suppose, preschoolers are more familiar with this notion from TV shows and movies like the Disney Inside Out series. The idea that we're each comprised of a rich blend of emotions and instincts and talents seems to be a more common way of talking about our personalities with children than it was when I was first discovering such ideas in the late 1950s.

Mymble and Little My look almost like twins, if twins were of quite different sizes. Mymble is a sweetheart—and I remember thinking as a kid that her emotions are warm and caring and also quite easy to trigger. In contrast, Little My always has a mischievous tilt to her expression and loves nothing more than mischief—including occasional "bad" behavior just to make a point. Even as a child, I understood that—together as sisters—they formed the full expressions of the ways we all live our lives.

So, in this particular picture-book, Little My seems to be lost, Mymble is distressed and their friend Moomintroll tries to help out. Throughout the book, kids are invited by Jansson's text to peer through holes and openings to see if we can help these characters resolve their dilemma. I even love the final page, which I won't even try to explain in detail here—except that it involves the tiniest hole in the book and the question of whether Little My might be able to escape one more time into our world!

[Johanna Hedström · Rating 5 out of 5]

En söt liten bok som jag bara blev glad av att läsa.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been thinking a great deal lately about the relationship between text and illustrations in children's literature. I can name three examples off the top of my head where the pictures go far beyond the words they ostensibly illustrate.

In the first, Robert Frost's poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, is illustrated by Susan Jeffers, whom I can only assume has no relationship whatsoever to Mr. Frost. I had always found the poem itself beautiful and slightly wild in a somber sort of way: what in the world is this New Englander doing stopping in the middle of a forest in a snowstorm? My answer was always that the woods and the snow compelled him to stop. He pauses on his way and then, with a certain sadness, forces himself to resume his journey to home and hearth. Ms. Jeffers, however, creates an entirely different story with her pictures to explain this man's stopping in the woods. He is a Santa Claus figure with a jolly stomach and a long white beard, who brings hay and seeds to the friendly woodland creatures. In Ms. Jeffers' version, the trip to the woods to feed the animals mid-winter becomes the whole raison d'etre for the man's journey. In my opinion, Ms. Jeffers' illustrations sentimentalize the poem and diminish all power it has.

In the second, Peter Spier (Caldecott-winner) illustrated the old song The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night. Instead of changing the story with his drawings, Mr. Spier illuminates it with a delightful surfeit of detail. We are immediately transported to a very distinct time and place: the New England countryside (I myself think it's probably the Berkshires) at harvesttime. The Fox who is the main character has an impossibly cozy den, populated by his wife and his little ones. Where I wholly applaud Mr. Spier's drawings, and deplore Ms. Jeffers', they are similar in that the poems which they illustrate are perfectly capable of standing alone without the drawings.

The drawings in Tove Jansson's book, The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My, are entirely different. The text is not stand-alone; it is entirely dependent on the illustrations. I understand that one major difference between Ms. Jansson's illustrations and Ms. Jeffers' and Mr. Spier's is that Ms. Jansson both wrote and illustrated the book. However, not all author-illustrators make their pictures play as much of a pivotal role as Ms. Jansson does hers. Her book is an example, I think, of the highest symbiotic heights to which an author-illustrator can aspire.

Ms. Jansson chose to use her pictures to explicate that which her words do not - and uses her words to explicate that which her pictures do not. This book tells the story of the journey of Moomintroll, an innocent little troll who looks quite a lot like a hippopotamus made out of marshmallow, his worried and tearful friend Mymble, a little girl, and Mymble's mischievous younger sister, Little My. Ms. Jansson uses her pictures to create a mood -- to evoke fear or radiate comfort, for example -- and also to tell us things about her characters we would otherwise not know. A great deal of her character development for "Little My" is done entirely through pictures and not through words. And the pictures themselves are wonderful: colorful and bleak at the same time, exciting, terrible, and -- at long last -- comforting. The text is often more fun than the pictures, with some very clever rhymes in English (Wikipedia informs me that Ms. Jansson was one of a Swedish minority in Finland, and that her books were originally written in Swedish; this book was very skillfully translated into English). Finally, I have to talk about the holes in the pages. In each page, there is a hole through which you get a glimpse of what's to come. The holes play another, more important role: it is through the holes that Moomin, Mymble, and Little My clamber through and move forward on their journey. And as you turn the pages and look back through the holes, your attention is focused on an entirely different portion of the pages you've left behind. Ms. Jansson is stunningly adroit at making it all fit together. This book is well worth reading and re-reading.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tämä kirja se vain paranee jokaisella lukukerralla !
Tämä oli yksi lapsuuteni suosikkikirjoista; jaksoin kuunnella tämän uudelleen ja uudelleen väsymättä tarinaan, riimittelyyn tai kuvitukseen. Mitä ilmeisemmin myös oma jälkikasvuni on ominut saman piirteen, sillä lapset nauliutuvat kirjan ääreen samantien kun se kirjahyllystä nostetaan luettavaksi.

[Anna Nesterovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book! First, it's about our beloved characters - Moomin Family. Second, it is well made, interactive, with flowing rhyme. Perfect for children from 3 years up.

[Filoména · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mumínci! Mumínci! Konečně, ach, jak dlouho jsem čekala! Ejchuchu a holala!

[Denisa T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kouzelní mumínci, hravé prostřihovánky a krásně přebásněný text Radkem Malým, co víc si přát?! :)

[Hanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik vind de Nederlandse vertaling op zich wel leuk, maar ik ben toch ook benieuwd naar hoe het is in het Zweeds (zeker omdat het ook met rijm is).

En ook: in het originele boek was de tekst handgeschreven, maar in de Nederlandse vertaling hebben ze zo’n “handwritten” lettertype gebruikt dat volgens mij standaard in Word zit (wat je in het zesde leerjaar zou gebruiken voor je boekbespreking als je iets ~ludiek~ wou) en daardoor ziet het er plots zo amateuristisch uit.

[Agris Fakingsons · Rating 3 out of 5]

..vispriecīgākais šo lasot biju brīžos, kad katrā lapā izlasīju teikumu "kas notika pēc tam?" un meita teica: "nezinu." :) | 3,5 *

[Zosia · Rating 4 out of 5]

cute

[Elina Mäkitalo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ihana muumikirja. Tätä on jo lapsuudessa luettu monen monta kertaa. En usein pidä runoista, mutta tämä tarina toimi myös runomuotoisena.

Kirja menee Helmt- lukuhaasteeseen 2024 kohtaan numero 12. Lastenrunokirja.

[τλιϓλ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last night before sleeping, I decided to read it, it was a very nice book, written in a poetic way, simple words, excited adventure and the characters were nice as well, I enjoyed the book fully and couldn't stop till I finished it. It wasn't a long one though but you find your self attracted to it since the first page, the way the words were written, shaped and the little artistic things they made in the book gave it a very lovely look. It deserved the full stars.

[Cynthia Egbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could read Swedish, and then I think this poetic work would come across properly. As it stands, the translator really made a valiant effort but this one just does not appeal to me. I put this one on my to-read list because of a children's literature class and then it did not become available in time for the class due to the shelter in place. I was excited to finally get my hands on the book but it ended up being a disappointment. Sigh.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Finland, a national treasure - and why this book gets five stars is because of the design work. It's superb. Almost a 3D affect by the cut pages and by seeing the other page via a whole on the previous page, etc. Graphic design is the perfect medium for books. And this little killer of a book kicks a certain part of my body into a thrill.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is beautiful. The art work and cut outs work beautifully with the rhyming text to help the child or children predict what will happen next. This book would work best for sharing in a small group or with an individual child, preferably ones who know the Moomin characters so that they can interact fully with the text. A pleasure to read.

[Marci · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book so much. The progression of the story is so engaging with the reader asked to guess what happens next at every page turn. The illustrations and cut pages are wonderful, and the fact that it's a product of Finland just puts it over the top. I love everything Scandinavian!

[Regina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one book is representational of my adoration of all things Moomin.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love when the children pick this book to read. The illustrations and construction of this book truly create a world of wonder and surprise.

[Snufkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely awesome, a beautiful and creative book from cover to cover (literally), and the start of my cravings for raspberry juice...in moomin Arabia mugs...

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first introduction to the children's books by Tove Jansson and it's just as charming as hell. My daughter absolutely loves it! Will be investing in more.