Magical and touching, the adventures of two brothers in the fantasy land they arrive in after their tragically early deaths is an uplifting as well as an exciting story. After their deaths, Jonathan and Karl are united in the ‘land beyond the stars’ and here they need all the courage and goodness they can find in their hearts to save the peaceful valley from the evil that threatens it. Winner of awards too numerous to mention, Astrid and her books have delighted generations of children and this one is no exception.
My brother, Jonathan, knew that I was going to die. 'How can things be so terrible,' I asked. 'That some people have to die, when they're not even ten years old?' 'I don't think it's that terrible,' said Jonathan. 'I think you'll have a marvellous time.' A tender story of courage, love, and life after death from the author of Pippi Longstocking.
Astrid Lindgren was born Astrid Ericsson on November 14, 1907 on a farm called Nas outside the small town of Vimmerby in Sweden. As a child, Astrid loved to read, particularly books which had girls as the heroine. She loved Anne of Green Gables and the Pollyanna books. One of her strongest recollections as a child was meeting two pilots, Captains Sonders and Madicken. One of them tried to land on the roof of her house, or that is the way it looked at the time.
After attending public school, she moved to Stockholm and married Sture Lindgren. The Lindgrens had two children. Astrid wrote her first story, Britt-Mari Opens Her Heart, in 1944. Her second book, Pippi Longstocking, which she wrote as a present for her daughter's tenth birthday, was published in 1945. She received the Raben & Sjogren's Best Children's Book prize for Pippi and became a book editor for that publisher for many years. She also received numerous other honours and awards including the International Book Award.
Astrid published more than one hundred books in her lifetime and is still the most popular children's author in Sweden. Her books have been translated into more than sixty languages. She died in 2002, aged 94.
