Tove and the Island with No Address
by Lauren Soloy; illus. by the author
Primary    Tundra    48 pp.
10/24    9781774883150    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781774883167    $10.99

In this fitting homage to beloved Finnish author Tove Jansson, a girl named Tove travels to a rustic island with her family, as they do every summer. The next morning she rises as “the stars were beginning to yawn, but the sun was still asleep” and strides confidently out the door looking for things to do. Tove’s red boots signal adventure, and her yellow hair stands out against the dramatic and ominous-looking sea and sky, a beacon of light in the darkness. She visits a grotto to see her secret friend, a squat, hairy creature with a pointy nose. She takes his five birdlike and mischievous daughters for a walk, but a gust of wind blows them away, “shouting and giggling.” Eventually, she finds the tiny girls; a ferocious storm sends her running back to the grotto, the creatures cupped in her hands to keep them dry. Then Tove heads home—“What a fortifying thing to see light beaming from the windows and cheerful smoke coming from the chimney!” A luminous double-page spread shows her wrapped in her mother’s arms, and as she tucks into a plate of hot pancakes, she thinks what it would be like “never getting soaked to the bone and then getting dry again…How dreadful!” This pairing of a strange escapade in the wild with a warm and a cozy welcome home epitomizes the appeal of Jansson’s Moomin books; Moomin fans of all ages will especially enjoy this tale. Appended with a biographical note about Jansson.

From the ">January/February 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.