Reading Slothfully

My cousin, Diane, has some fascination/connection with Finland, and that's where I first encountered Moomins, from perusing her FaceBook posts. I gather that they are sort of hippo-like forest trolls, or something. No idea, but apparently in Finland they're wildly popular. I read a book by the Moomin creator, Jove Jansson, but it had nothing to do with Moomins, just weird, slightly depressed Finnish people. So, I finally broke down and went to the library to get a dead-tree Moomin book because my library didn't carry any kindle books featuring Moomins. [It was my first time in our newly refurbished library, and I must say it's awesome. I might take up reading dead-tree books again just to have the chance to go to the library more often.]

Anyway, this was a most delightful book. Just what I needed after finishing something about the horrors of racism. So, Moomintroll lives in a blue Moominhouse with Moominmamma and Moominpapa. I think, maybe, Sniff, who is a "little animal"—sort of like a mouse perhaps—, also lives with them. First Moomintroll and Sniff go off on an adventure and discover a cave. They also come in contact with Snuffkin, a wanderer, with whom they become fast friends. Then they hear about a comet that is hurtling toward earth. So they're off on another adventure to an observatory to ask the scientists about the comet and it's potential dangers. They collect up some more companions along the way, most notably Snork Maiden, with whom Moomintroll develops a romance. They discover that the comet is indeed a danger and they have only a short time to warn people in Moomin valley to flee. They get back, just in the nick of time, move all their stuff into the cave and survive the comet. Something like that.

My synopsis is, of course, a bit simple minded, but that's not the fault of the book. This is a delightfully written story that reads like a very good bed time story, somewhat like the first couple of Dr. Doolittle books or The Hobbit. Interestingly, I conned my spouse into reading this book and she was less impressed. "A bit bland", I think was her comment. She thought I'd be better served by re-reading The Wind in the Willows, or Winnie the Pooh. So, now I have those two in kindle format for reading in the near future. But first, the next in the Moomin series, Finn Family Moomintroll.