Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36670 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

Review
"The Moomin family strays far from the tranquil charms of Moominvalley: on the French Riviera, Moominpappa gets drunk and Moomin's sweetheart, the Snork Maiden, is seduced by a toothy film star. But then the hattifatteners appear--mute, sock-like animals that grow from seeds and chase after electric storms . . . Here is where Jansson's weird but true world begins; where fear, loneliness and insecurity are banished by love and the force of imagination." --Time.com
"[Jansson's] strips, more than 800 in five years, stand as perennial classics of children's literature across the Nordic lands . . . Their belated recovery from crumbling newsprint into five eventual volumes seems almost as fantastical and life-affirming as the Moomin fables themselves." --"The Independent"

Customer Reviews

this volume contains a few awkward stories
In this fourth Moomin book the strip becomes a family business. Tove Jansson's brother Lars starts helping out with the the scripts for four out of five stories (two years later Lars would take over the entire strip, doing both the art and scripts for a decade and a half.)

While it's certainly no disaster, it has to be admitted that the first two Lars-scripted stories in this volume really don't amount to that much, and the second one seems to more or less have been abandoned midway through. The third story is better, so I suppose Lars was slowly learning how to tell a continuing story in a daily strip. The fourth story is really good. It's also scripted by Lars, but it's an adaptation of Tove's book "Comet in Moominland", so it's not all new material. The final story is done by Tove by herself, and it's a good one.

So basically, while this volume contains great Tove Jansson art all the way through, some of the scripting is a little awkward compared to the first three volumes. But it's still worth buying for the wonderful art and for the few good stories it contains.

UPDATE: apparently D&Q has confirmed that there are two concluding strips missing from two stories in this volume.... so the second story WASN'T quite 'abandoned midway through'. Still not quite a great story though. The missing strips will be printed in the next volume.

For die hard Moomin fans only I think.
The book itself is absolutely beautiful in appearance. And is solidly bound in a hard cover with fabric covered spine.
And the cartoon artwork itself is typically Tove Jansson and also very attractive and stylish.
However, the story lines and plots differ from the animated version and lack vigour and punch. They certainly don't flow any where near as freely as other cartoon stories.
I would say this book series is really only for die hard Tove Jansson and Moomin fans and not all that orientated for younger kids.
If you're expecting a cartoon version of the animated series then you'll be disappointed.
Otherwise, it's brilliant.