Best-loved Moomintroll wakes up excitedly on his birthday but, when he tries to show all his friends his wonderful present, they just don’t seem to be interested…Poor Moomin! But, when there is a ring at the door, Moomin finds that his friends haven’t forgotten him after all! A wonderful picture book that introduces the world famous Moomins to young readers.
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."
The Moomin family and their friends are the delightful creation of Tove Jansson, and are full of a particular humour and magic that has enchanted generations of children and adults alike. Using the author's original characters and artwork, Moomin and the Birthday Button is part of a stunning new range of children's titles launching in the year of the Moomins' 65th anniversary celebrations. In this, the first of a new series of picture books, Moomintroll wakes up full of excitement. It's his birthday! But when it appears that his friends have forgotten all about his special day, Moomintroll is very upset. Even Moominmamma finds it hard to comfort him! Then there's a knock at the door ...Who can it be, and what will happen next?
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.
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