Buy Book "The Land of the Moomins. In 3 books. Book 3" in Ukrainian

The Land of the Moomins, Book 3, by Tove Jansson, is both funny and sad. Cheerful because the adventures continue no matter what, but sad because sooner or later everything comes to an end.

This book includes three stories about the life and adventures of the Moomin family: “The Invisible Child”, “Dad and the Sea”, and “At the End of November”.

If you are looking for children’s stories about stunning adventures that just blow your mind, then you should probably look for some other books. The stories about mummy trolls are unhurried, they go their own way, just like life itself – not in a hurry, not staying anywhere for long. The characters in these stories are completely different – there are neither absolutely good nor absolutely evil. Just like in real life, everything happens – sometimes they are capricious, sometimes they make mistakes, quarrel, make up, get into life situations, and move on. They are as close as possible to ordinary people. Perhaps that is why everyone can find some of their own traits in these magical creatures.

Perhaps because it is the last book, it is full of life philosophy and symbolism, especially melancholy, sometimes even too much. Sometimes I wanted it to be more cheerful, but what can you do – that’s life!

The third and final book by Tove Jansson about the adventures of the Moomins from VSL contains the writer’s latest works about the cute creatures from Moomin Valley. They contain much more psychology than the first books, so they can be interesting not only for children but also for adult readers. There are three stories in this collection: “The Invisible Child”, “Dad and the Sea”, and “At the End of November”. It is worth noting that this book contains the least amount of Moomins. Actually, there are very few of them here. Thus, the first story is rather a collection of stories about different inhabitants of the Valley, and “At the End of November” is a story about how our heroes’ friends and acquaintances came to their empty house. It’s about how they try to get along under one roof while their family is away.

Where there are a lot of mummy trolls is in the incredible story “Dad and the Sea”, which tells how our family decided to change their boring home environment and went to live on a lonely island – and what happened. This very leisurely and philosophical work is my favorite of the entire cycle.

I know that it looks strange now – I’m reading serious literature, and then “bam” – Moomins. In fact, this is very cool literature to forget which way school literature and other problems lie.

There are three volumes of three stories written by Tove Ja’nson about the amazing country of the Moomins and the adventures of the main characters.

Each story has its own plot, so in order not to waste your precious time, I will focus only on the features of the stories and my impression.

Probably the thing that tormented me constantly was the heroes of these nine stories. We have only Mummy Troll, Mummy Mama, and Mummy Daddy who are constant, while all the others come and go, disappear and reappear. This annoyed me the most. Of course, I can’t keep silent about the complete lack of logic.

Moomins are created for children (and we must remember this). They carry meaning for children. The right relationships in the family, with friends, and strangers are shown very delicately and immediately clearly. The storyline with the character of Mara is superbly shown. This creature is incredibly cold, all living things run away from her and are afraid of her, and nothing ever grows in the places where she stood or sat for too long. No one loves it, and that is why it has become so cold and unkind. But she reaches for the light with all her being (literally). In the last story “Dad and the Sea” I even burst into tears (which is not typical for me) when the Mummy-troll came to Mara without light, and she was incredibly happy that he just came for her.

These books are for “rebooting” the brain, they are a source of positive emotions and memories filled with not deeply hidden meaning. I guarantee you that after reading these books you will definitely want to have your own mummy troll.

“The Invisible Child is actually a series of separate stories about the mysterious creatures of the Moomin world. In fact, you may suddenly recognize yourself, your children, or your friends in these creatures. Maybe there are those among you who are constantly worried and expect universal cataclysms? Read “Chepurulya, who believed in catastrophes” (Chepurulya – Filifionka (Russian)). Maybe someone else doesn’t know about jealousy between an older and a younger child? Read “A Terrible Story”. Other stories here are also very instructive and interesting. They allow you to see your world from a different angle.

I read “Dad and the Sea” easily and with interest. Although, one could say that the book is about nothing – a collection of episodes from the life of the Moomin family. This book is for lovers of contemplation of the harsh North Sea and storms, as well as fertile soil and beds. Scandinavian writers are well versed in both contemplation of the sea and home-grown vegetables 🙂

“In Late November” is just right for reading in the fall, when it’s raining outside, and you have a nice jug of hot drink and a book with a good message nearby. Here we will see the contrasts between the harsh autumn nature and our artificial cozy world under the yellow lamp. Strange creatures and their strange life are here again, in front of us. And at the same time, they don’t forget to drink coffee, dress up, and make bread puddings (or maybe charlotte from a loaf? :).

Tove Jansson’s books are mostly not intended for children also because there are ambiguous ethical situations that even an adult would find difficult; the main characters are not perfectly good or perfectly bad – they just live their lives and try not to interfere with others – sometimes too much, they seem to be indifferent to each other (but they are not!) – and children can misunderstand this. There are illustrations in the book, but they are black-and-white, schematic, and few in number – this is how Tove Jansson imagined her characters.

The third and final volume of the most complete collection of works about mummie-trolls in the Ukrainian language includes such works as “At the End of November”, “Daddy and the Sea”, and a collection of short stories about the inhabitants of the Mummy Valley. This three-volume collection was published by Lviv “Stary Leva Publishing House”, and Natalia Ivanichuk translated Tove Jansson’s works from Swedish, so you need not worry about the quality of translation, nor for the books themselves – it is perfect. Moreover, all the books in the collection are illustrated by the author’s own illustrations of this Finnish writer, because she was not only a writer, but also an artist. Interestingly, it was Tuve who illustrated the Finnish editions of “Lord of the Rings” and “Alice in Wonderland”.

I adore all three books in the series, but the third is still my favorite, because the stories that went into it are more adult and philosophical. If you forget for a second that the main characters in the works are residents of Moomin Valley, it feels like you are reading an adult and very intelligent book. So I definitely recommend both this and the other two volumes of the series.