The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My is Tove Jansson’s first Moomin picture book and a striking example of her creativity and talent with its bright colours, holes in the pages and thrilling story. A unique video documentary sheds new light on the complicated process behind this classic of Nordic children’s fiction.

The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My is regarded as Tove Jansson’s international breakthrough and made the Moomins known to the larger public in her home country Finland when it was published in 1952.

The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My comes to life in video

This prizewinning book both shocked and fascinated the reviewers, but most of them thought it was an exquisite book, says  Tove Jansson biographer Boel Westin in this short video documentary.

In The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My video, Tove Jansson’s imaginative original illustrations come to life with new animations, accompanied by specially composed music by the composer and Stratovarius bassist Lauri Porra. Sophia Jansson, Tove Jansson’s niece, narrates.

The video also shows the script of the book, preserved by Åbo Akademi University in Finland, including Jansson’s original colour maps and mini models of the nook. Another fascinating fact is that it’s actually the lack of colour which leads Tove Jansson’s idea of perforating the pages. The book was printed in only three colours, but Jansson turned this limitation into an advantage. She cuts holes in the book in order to make more colours visible at the same time. She makes the prototype out of enormous pages, that she folds eight times in order to plan the printing. It’s a complicated process, to say the least.

“Any mistake in assembling the book could destroy the whole concept — I know it’s rather a bother with all those holes.”

Tove Jansson also writes long and detailed letters to her editor, in order to make everything right. “Any mistake in assembling the book could destroy the whole concept — I know it’s rather a bother with all those holes”, she told her editor Thure Svedlin at Schildts.

The original full-colour Moomin picture is available through Sort of Books, with playful rhyming text in a new version by one of Britain’s star poets, Sophie Hannah. In the Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My video documentary, you can see for yourself what it looked like and where Tove Jansson got the inspiration for her first Moomin picture book.

 

According to publisher Natania Jansz at Sort of Books, it’s fair to say that the 2001 publication of a brand new English version of The Book of Moomin, Mymble and Little My helped launch a revival of Tove Jansson’s work in the UK and US.

 

“Suddenly there was a “new” Jansson title showing how stunning, and incredibly innovative her artwork and ideas were and prompting high profile Moomin fans such as Philip Pullman to step forward. “But the main thing is that – as in its illustrations – it swung open a window for new and old Moomin fans to discover new Moomin reprinted editions and all the newly translated Tove Jansson titles to come”.