“It was the winter of war, in 1939. One’s work stood still; it felt completely pointless to try to create pictures.
Perhaps it was understandable that I suddenly felt an urge to write down something that was to begin with “Once upon a time.”
What followed had to be a fairytale – that was inevitable – but I excused myself with avoiding princes, princesses and small children and chose instead my angry signature character from the cartoons, and called him the Moomintroll.
The half-written story was forgotten until 1945. Then a friend pointed out that it could become a children’s book; just finish it and illustrate it; maybe they will want it.
Anyhow, here was my very first happy ending!” - Tove Jansson
~~~
It must have been late in the afternoon one day at the end of August when Moomintroll and his mother arrived at the deepest part of the great forest. It was completely quiet, and so dim between the trees that it was as though twilight had already fallen.
They were out searching for a snug, warm place where they could build a house to crawl into when winter came. Moomins cannot stand the cold at all, so the house would have to be ready by October at the latest.
80 years ago, in 1945, during the last months of World War II, was published the first book about the family of Moomins by Tove Jansson – “The Moomins and the Great Flood” (Swedish: “Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen”, literally “The Little Trolls and the Great Flood”).
Small tribute to the book, drawn in style informed by early look of characters.
