This is the third book in the Moomin series, written and illustrated by Tove Jansson in 1948, but the first to be set in the Moomin house and the surrounding area, it was also the first to be translated into English. Oddly the first Moomin book was the last to be translated as I covered in ‘The Moomins and the Great Flood‘ back in 2018. Finn Family Moomintroll consists of seven interlinked stories, each of which can be read on their own but together tell of a character called The Hobgoblin and his magical hat who rides around on a flying black panther in his hunt for rubies to add to his collection, especially the huge King’s Ruby. Indeed the original Swedish title is Trollkarlens Hatt (The Hobgoblin’s Hat). The main problem with having this children’s book as the first English language one is the relatively large number of characters that had made their home in the Moomin house by now. Apart from Moominmamma, Moominpappa and their son Moomintroll there is Snork Maiden and her brother The Snork, Snufkin, The Muskrat, Sniff and even a Hemulen all of whom have their own personalities that had mainly been explored in the first two books so it can be a bit confusing for new readers. This volume adds Thingumy and Bob as new residents and The Groke as a rather scary visitor wanting to retrieve something that Thingumy and Bob had taken from her and hidden in their suitcase. Fortunately Little My and her own brand of chaos hasn’t appeared yet.

Unusually the book starts with a preface and all the characters preparing for the winter hibernation with Moomintroll looking at the first snow:

“Tonight”, he thought, “we shall settle down for our long winter’s sleep.” (All Moomintrolls go to sleep about November. This is a good idea, too, if you don’t like the cold and the long winter darkness.)

So after a final meal of pine needles, which apparently helps sleepiness and provides long term sustenance, they all go to bed and the next thing we know it is the first proper chapter and Snufkin has already got up from his long one hundred nights sleep. He and Moomintroll wake Sniff and together they got for a walk up a nearby hill where they find on the top a large top hat which they decide to take home for Moominpappa. The hat is too large for him so they decide to use it as a waste paper basket and Moomin threw the eggshell from his breakfast into it. The next day some small clouds are drifting about the house, but unusual ones because you could get on and ride them, see Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden doing just that on the cover. It turns out that the hat had changed the eggshell pieces into the clouds and anything in the hat for any time is also randomly altered ut only for a short period, no more than a day. Jansson uses this transformative power to explore the concepts of things changing and peoples acceptance or resistance to the way things alter. Even Moomintroll is completely changed when he hides in the hat and nobody recognises him apart from his mother when she looks deep into his eyes and recognises her son at which point he changes back.

I have a couple of copies of this book, the one at the top is a lovely collectors hardback from Sort Of Books and was first printed by them in 2017, it includes a fold out map of Moomin Valley as opposed to the single page illustration from earlier editions. I also have a paperback version in the form of the first Puffin edition from 1961 which can be seen below and which really popularised the Moomin stories in the English speaking world. Both books have the same text using a translation by Tove Jansson’s friend Elizabeth Portch which was done in 1950 and originally published by Ernest Benn Ltd.

Included in this edition and also the Ernest Benn volume from 1950 is a charming letter from Moominmamma introducing the Moomins and saying that she has heard that there aren’t any Moomintrolls in England, I apologise for the poor reproduction of this letter but despite the paperback being sixty five years old it is in mint condition and appears to be unread and I don’t want to crack the spine to take the photo. This letter is not included in the more recent Sort Of Books edition,

The book covers almost a complete year with the final lines of being: “It is autumn in Moomin Valley, for how else can spring come back again?” A final positive sentiment in a book that deals with important issues around change and resistance to change in a way that speaks to children everywhere.