The inhabitants of Moominvalley
Tove Jansson: Finn Family Moomintroll (first published in 1948) Tove Jansson: Moominland Midwinter (first published in 1957) Tove Jansson: Tales from Moominvalley (first published in 1962) Tove Jansson is Scandinavia’s best-known children’s author (along with Astrid Lindgren), whose work is also significant as an illustrator, comic book writer and adult’s book writer. She finished her first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, which was published exactly 80 years ago, in 1945, but unfortunately not in Hungarian. The book was followed by eight more, which were not only exciting because of their stories but also for their translations. The author belonged to the Swedish minority living in Finland and wrote her books in her native language, Swedish. However, the world got to know the Moomins from translations made based on the Finnish adaptation not from the Swedish original. The first Hungarian translation of the Tales from Moominvalley was published by…
Witches and Ghosts
Phil Hickes: Shadowhall Academy – Ghost Story Society (Usborne Publishing 2025) Suffolk, England January 1988 Mysteries needed to be solved. Or are there secrets that are better left untended? Lilian Jones and her friends should have learned from what happened to them last term, but of course they didn’t… As if the school wasn’t creepy enough, they started a Ghost Story Society where they can scare each other and themselves. Of course, only gently. The club turns out to be fun until they hear a story about a mysterious book that has caused a lot of trouble long ago and is supposedly still in the school. Lilian wants nothing more than to find out what the truth is. This puts not only herself, but her friends and the entire school in danger. The special atmosphere of the boarding school is felt in this story, which successfully balances on the edge…
Here comes the apocalypse
Tove Jansson: Comet in Moominland (originally published in 1968 under the title Kometen kommer in Swedish) Moominvalley, the home of the Moomins, is perfect. Nothing disturbs the peace of the summer afternoon, everyone spends their time as they please: Moomintroll and Sniff explore new places, Moominmamma does the gardening, and Moominpappa writes a book. But suddenly the weather changes strangely and they learn that a comet is approaching Earth. Moomintroll and Sniff departed to find out if the news is true and if they can survive the impact? The characters in Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories embody different types of people, but they are all kind and lovable. They seem like children’s books, but in fact adults are who can really understand them. The story itself is serious, as the Moomins are waiting for the end of the world and they don’t know if tomorrow will exist. They are looking for…
Uma and the AI
Sam Copeland: Uma and the Answer to Absolutely Everything (Puffin Books 2021) Uma is not a main character who has any special abilities or gains them during the story. She is just as normal at the beginning of the story as she is at the end. She just got lucky and found an omniscient artificial intelligence, Athena, who can answer any question. This comes in handy because Uma has a lot of questions. For example, why did her mother leave them? Or will her father talk again? Is a parking lot being built on the place of their town? Uma tries to find the answers with the help of Athena and her best friend Alan Alan (yes, twice). Like other Sam Copeland books, here too, he deals with a difficult topic, but he takes the edge off by humor and makes it digestible and enjoyable. Uma’s character is very kind…
Weird people
Paola Peretti: Filippo, Me and the Cherry Tree (Hot Key Books 2022) Three years have passed since Mafalda was left in the dark. The dark gray fog from her illness now completely fills her eyes, only the red color can penetrate it. Mafalda is already quite used to her new life. She always knows what time it is, she navigates in their apartment, she goes to school almost entirely alone and her sense of smell has become very sensitive. She can even smell joy and sadness in the air. There are things she can do in the dark: she takes notes with her voice recorder, plays the guitar or listens to an audiobook. She still dreams in color. She also has plans for the future: she wants to be a musician or a writer, she wants to travel by plane and she wants to be Filippo’s best friend forever. She…
What would you like to dream about today?
Miye Lee: DallerGut Dream Department Store (Wildfire 2024) Have you ever wondered why we dream? Why do childhood memories come back or why do we see places we’ve never been before? Why do certain people reappear in our dreams? Or what are nightmares for? Dreams are usually attributed to the subconscious. But what if there is a city somewhere that we could only enter when we are asleep. We could sit in cafes and eat foods that would make us sleep well. But most importantly, we could visit the DallerGut Dream Department Store, where we could buy ourselves different types of dreams on each floor. Do you want to fly like an eagle, meet a celebrity, or see your crush? You can get everything here. You may not get what you expected, but you will definitely get what you need. The book features loosely connected stories that introduce the department…
Modern classics – The Worst Witch
Jill Murphy. The Worst Witch (first published by Allison & Bushby in 1974) Jill Murphy’s earliest memories were of drawing and stories. She has always loved telling and illustrating stories. She began writing The Worst Witch at the age of 15 and was inspired by her own school experiences. She modeled her characters on her own teachers, friends and enemies (!). In an interview, she said that „My two friends and I used to come home in our dark uniforms, looking very scruffy at the end of the day. My Mum used to say ‘Look at you all. You look like the three witches!’ „. She finished the book when she was 18, but after numerous rejections, it was first published in 1974 when she was 24. Future witches study at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches. Outside, gloomy gray walls and towers rise to the sky, and inside there are…
London Bookstores
A long-awaited dream of mine came true when my husband and I took a great – and exhausting – bookstore tour in London. I’m sure I’m not alone in my love of bookstores and books. I also prepared for this trip using a book written specifically for bookworms and listing all the bookstores in London. Since we had limited time, we focused on central London: Bloomsbury, Soho, Charing Cross and Piccadilly Circus. Among other places, we visited the London Review Bookshop, which was opened in 2003 by the famous publisher under the same name. In addition to the conscientiously selected collection, the bookstore also hosts various bookish events, readings and signings. Gay’s the Word was founded in 1979 and was the first LGBTQ bookstore in Britain. In addition to gay, lesbian and trans novels, magazines and non-fiction books, it plays an important role in the life of the LGBTQ community.…
The tiger inside us
Tae Keller: When You Trap a Tiger (Penguin Random House 2020) Lily has a secret superpower: she can turn invisible. Not like in the movies where the hero saves the day. She can simply disappear so that no one notices her. According to her sister, this is called being shy. But Lily knows that it is magic and it comes in especially handy when she wants to stay out of her mother and sister’s fights. Just such an argument occurs when they move from California to Lily’s grandmother (her halmoni) because she needs help. The girls have always loved their halmoni, who told them Korean fairy tales, but this still means a big change in everyone’s life. That’s when the tiger first comes to Lily… The story is based on the Korean fairy tale of the Sun and the Moon, several versions of which appear in the book. For me,…
Ordinary Action Hero
Jackie Chan – Zhu Mo: Growing Old Before Growing Up (Gallery Books 2018) Jackie Chan’s name is now synonymous with action movies with beautifully executed fight scenes. Fewer people know that he is also present in the film industry as a fight choreographer and director, but he has also released music albums. In this volume, we can follow the actor’s life until he was 60 and won the Oscar through personal stories, as well as the author Zhu Mo’s own experiences. Jackie Chan was born on April 7, 1954 in Hong Kong. He studied martial arts from very early on and became famous in Asia at a very young age. Like everyone who suddenly becomes rich, he wanted to buy everything he ever wanted. However, unbridled spending has now been replaced by charity. And irresponsibility has been replaced by precise planning and strict rules. His movies always have some moral…