#Moominland Midwinter

[skruttet]

Seen this whole interview on yle before, but it's nice having a section with proper English subtitles!

[itsmedrawpower]

Skiing part 1

Been reading Moominland Midwinter lately

[happyheidi]

“All things are so very uncertain, and that's exactly what makes me feel reassured.”

- Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter

[libraryofglitter]

Reading Moominland Midwinter is like. Your friends and family will always love you. You will feel a bit lonely and sad forever. The bitter winter will go away but it's important to let it stay for a while. There is a part of you that will never understand and there is a part of you that will never be understood. Strange creatures exist and they are different from you. Sometimes you need to be a little mean. Your heart will always yearn for something you can't quite name but it's okay because you can drink tea. Spring is arriving.

[zhalfirin]

Winter im Mumintal - Tove Jansson (Moominland Midwinter)

materials used:

original book in signatures printed endpapers publishing paper (for printing the covers) leather (vegetable tanned) silk thread for headbands genuine gold foil (for hot-stamping the title)

[carriagelamp]

A few days late, but I'm lazy...

My favourite books that I read during 2023!

I got really lucky this year, I read some ridiculously good books, to the point that I had a really hard time narrowing them down. And I cheated on a few and bunched them up so I wouldn't have to choose 🙃

I did more detailed assessments of the books in my month reviews, but for anyone that's interested in something I read, here's a quick description:

Annie: An Old-Fashioned Story by Thomas Meehan -- A novelization of the Little Orphan Annie story, close related to the film musical including references to the songs. A charming read that captures the enjoyment of the film but adds a lot more details into the struggles and hardships Annie would have gone through during life on her own in the Depression.

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild -- Three girls from a poor family in London end up being welcomed to a ballet academy where they have the opportunity to learn not only how to dance, but to begin attending performances that let them earn money for their family. Follows the heart warming adventures of sisters with a nice balance of financial hardship and obligations during the Depression.

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle -- A possession horror based around religious trauma and sexual identity. Fantastic prose and genuinely chilling at points without ever feeling hopeless. Here the demons that start stalking people in this God-fearing Montana town are both metaphorical and literal.

A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd -- A collection of radio stories that follow the childhood misadventures of Ralphie; these stories would go to make up the classic film A Christmas Story, and Shepherd's hilarious, clever prose makes it a very fun read whether you know the film or not.

Doctor Who: Scratchman by Tom Baker -- I actually read a number of pretty good Doctor Who novels this year (13 Doctors 13 Stories, Time Lord Fairytales, Silhouette) and even a Torchwood one (Skypoint) but Scratchman was probably my favourite of the lot. The Fourth Doctor, Sarah, and Harry find themselvese in a horror adventures as they try to defend a host of villagers against an invading force of evil, skeletal scarecrows that are attempting to infect the humans around them.

Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones -- The star Sirius is accused of killing another luminary and losing a powerful instrument called a Zoi. His sentence for this crime is to be stripped of his powers and cast down to earth, to spend one lifetime living in a humble, mortal form - that of a true dog. If he can survive and find the Zoi within that lifetime, he will be welcomed back to the cosmos.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire -- A novella that explores the rehabilitation of children who had been chosen, who found a doorway and stepped into another, strange world. Adventures done, they now need to acclimatize themselves to living in the rigid confines of the real world.

Grandpa's Great Escape by David Walliams -- A hilarious and surprisingly heart-warming story about a boy and his grandfather who was a flying ace during the war. With his mind beginning to fail him, the grandfather is sent to live at a sinister and definitely evil old folks' home. Only Jack can save him.

Hazel's Shadow by Nicole MacCarron -- Hazel has always been plagued by strange visions - the ability to see and speak to ghosts, as well as the knowledge of a strange, nameless horror living in her grandmother's house. Things come to a head though, when a sudden, zombie-like illness explodes through her town leaving only a few left alive, too many ghosts to count, enemies at every turn, and the shadow waiting for them.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree -- (as well as it's sequel that came out later in the year, Bookshops & Bonedust). This was such a pleasant, low-stakes, domestic fantasy about Viv, an orcish ex-mercenary who has decided she's tired of fighting and would rather settle down and open a coffeeshop. One of the sticking points being, of course, that no one knows what coffee is.

Love Beyond Body, Space & Time by assorted authors, anthology -- An Indigenous queer sci-fi anthology with a really excellent collection of stories, including an author I already knew and loved! The stories explore a wide range of gender, sexuality, magic, machines, and ways of being, I highly recommend picking it up!

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske -- Robin, a young baronet, thought he was being shunted into the most out of the way and miserable public servant position imaginable. He expected things to be tedious but necessary. He did not expect to suddenly learn that magic is real and to be tangled in its machinations in a potentially lethal way.

(MDZS) Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu -- Rejoice, because the feared Yiling Patriarch, the necromancer terror who slaughtered thousands, is dead! And has been dead the past decade. And is now very, very confused to wake up in a new body that isn't his, in a room he's never seen before, and to be thrust into the middle of a murder mystery where everyone would want him dead if they were to learn his real identity.

Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson -- Moomins hibernate through the winter, that's how it has always been for them. So when young Moomintroll wakes and finds the rest of his family still fast asleep, he's left feeling lost and isolated in this new, strange, snow covered world beyond his door.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers -- (and its sequel A Prayer for the Crown-Shy) A very gentle, compassionate sci-fi novel that explores a world humans have created post-climate-crisis. Life is different, the past distant, and a young tea monk never expected to run into an actual robot, who had so long ago left humanity to live their own secluded life in the wilds. Now they're both struggling to answer the question "What do humans need?"

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore -- (and Kate Moore's other book The Woman They Could Not Silence) The Radium Girls is a narrative non-fiction book that looks at the lives of the girls who were paid to paint luminous watch dials using radium paint. It explores the horror, exploitation, and suffering that came from work place negligence and the world's gradual learning about what exactly radium can do.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston -- Presidential son and British prince are forced together for the sake of publicity - to prove that they don't actual hate each other and aren't going to cause a diplomatic incident. They cause a whole new and exciting diplomatic incident by falling in love! Do not read this for the politics, but it did end up being way way better than I expected, this author creates quite compelling characters.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett -- Sour, spoiled, and ill Mary is sent to live with her distant uncle on the Yorkshire moors. Set to be as contrary and unhappy as possible, little by little Mary begins to come out of her shell as she experiences nature, play, and love for perhaps the first time in her life.

System Collapse by Martha Wells -- Newest Murderbot book!! Murderbot, ART's crew, and the humans from Preservation are doing their best to defend the colonists on a plant that's cursed with a strange, alien plague from being consumed by the more immediate threat of corporate slavery. Something, however, seems to be wrong with Murderbot and its worried that if it can't fix the problem soon, it may cost its humans their lives.

(TGCF) Heaven Official's Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu -- Xie Lian is a god. Was a good. He has ascended to godhood twice, and been banished back to earth twice. Once a favour among the gods, he is now a laughing stock, a scrap-collecting god who has been forgotten by almost everyone. So it is with some shock and exasperation to all involved when he ascends for a third time.

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone -- A ridiculous poetic novella written through improbable letters that are written between two time travels on opposites sides of a time war. Seriously, this is probably the most beautiful book I read this year, go read it, the hype is justified.

Wave Me Goodbye by Jacqueline Wilson -- As World War Two rages, Shirley, like many children of the time, is sent from her home in London to be housed by a foster family in the country in order to avoid the Blitz. Put up with two boys in the strange, mostly empty Red House, Shirley has to find a new life for herself out in the country.

When The Angels Left The Old Country by Sacha Lamb -- Uriel the angel and Little Ash the demon find themselves drawn from their usual lives when a young girl from their shtetl goes missing after emigrating to America. Both with their own reasons for wanting to leave the old country, they set off on a sea voyage that will change everything for them.

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame -- The classic stories of Rat, Mole, and Toad. The story begins when Mole, venturing out of his little burrow, meets Rat and winds up living with him in his little home by the river rather than returning to his own, lonely, little hole. From there they have a variety of domestic adventures over the seasons, most notable being Toad's ill-fated obsession with motor cars.

[flowerbloom-arts]

A mutual told me about a super short fic on AO3 a while ago, it was so good I almost cried while reading, I remembered again and knew I just had to adapt it.

[cozypeachtea]

i’ve been rereading moominland midwinter and i think the themes of parental acceptance went over my head the last few times i read it.

the way moomintroll constantly comes back to his parents’ room to either try to wake them up or to fall asleep like them. he lays on the floor by moominmamma, he decorates their room with the artwork of summer he finds laying around, he doesn’t stay quiet because he wants them to wake up so bad, but they don’t.

he’s alone in what he’s dealing with, his parents can’t understand and they can’t follow. he has to go through this on his own, which is so important to his character development.

(i also noticed tove dedicated the book to her mother, which made me tear up a bit).

[antibeachballsociety]

"The Great Cold is coming..." ❄️

Happy (late) new year! Since it's still cold out I decided to draw my own interpretation of the Lady of the Cold from Moominland Midwinter.

I gave her a very Snow Queen-type design with a slender face and pointed crown, plus an icy texture on her cloak and horse. As for her horse, I made my interpretation a unicorn with icicles for its horn and mane. Both have empty, glowing white eyes since in the book, just looking at the Great Cold will freeze you. 🌨

[floralstorms]

Moominland Midwinter doodles

[indecisivegloom]

[skruttet]

sorry-oo vs the wolves 🐺 (x)

[merciganimard]

Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter

[isleofgont]

"I'm thinking about the aurora borealis. You can't really tell if it does exist or if it just looks like existing. All things are so very uncertain, and that's exactly what makes me feel reassured."

-Moominland Midwinter (1957) by Tove Jansson translated by Thomas Warburton

[wintereterna1]

“There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don’t fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all year. And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep — then they appear.”

— Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter, 1957

[hemulenish-hijinks]

Wimsy

A recurring minor character in the comics, he is Moominpappa's old best friend from his youth. He is a constant smoker, poker player and prefers to sleep under the table rather than a bed, but he is a charming and fun man who also became friends with Snufkin as they were building a jetty in Moomin and the Golden Tail. He also played a major role in Moominpappa and the Spies, in which he and Moominpappa try to relive their youth but get caught up in Soviet espionage.

He also gets adapted into an episode of the 90s second series, though with a new look and an original plot.

The Big Hemulen

Originally from a single chapter of Moominland Midwinter and having been adapted multiple times even in Tove's stageplays, he's considered obnoxious in his lifestyle and horn playing but is a kind and eager teacher willing to give lessons on how to ski. He even rescues the little Creep named Salome in a blizzard and saves Sorry-oo from being eaten by the wolves. He loves dogs and is a vegetarian.

In the 90s series he is a 2-episode character depicted as very competitive and particularly dismissive towards female characters, has an obsession with Moominmamma's jam and praises modern technology like the hot air balloon, he is also given the name of Mr. Brisk (unfortunately). In the 2019 series he's a minor character who is rude at best.