Yaaaaay, Children’s Literature!!!! It’s the BEST literature. And this is one of those books I remember from when I was a kid being totally completely absorbed in it. So good! By Astrid Lindgren who also did Pippi Longstocking, but this one is a lot better (I think).
Reminder! Where’s Your Hat Abe Lincoln in ONE WEEK!!! I expect you all to have read it. Or at least watched this video:
This book is actually in print, so no free version, but it’s also super widely available. You can get a new or used copy for about $5, and you can probably also get it from your local library. I bought a copy when I was 8 and have reread it maybe 20 times since then so you definitely get your money’s worth if you buy a copy!!! Especially if you have kids to give it to.
We have a heroine who is brave and unconventional, but also loves her parents, and really struggles as her sense of morality begins to become different from theirs. We have boy-girl friends who are very different personalities and attitudes towards the world, but get along great. We have adventures like falling in icy streams, and catching wild horses, and all kinds of things!
It’s just a really good book. A little darker and more adult than kids books usually are, but not inappropriate. I’m sticking with me “if you like A Wrinkle in Time, you will like this” rule. Similar higher level moral quandaries and relationship ideas, with appropriate sex and violence and so on content.
Really, all DCIB people should read it and also just people in general! It’s a slightly hidden gem of a kids book.
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dontcallitbollywood 
Yay! Ronia the Robber’s Daughter! A book that I can actually recall pretty well, and which I grew up with. Also, I am not 100% sure where my old childhood Finnish copy of the book is, but I knew I read it many times, and I’ve seen the pretty accurate Ghibli series of it (which has a stellar Finnish dub, though I say so myself), so I think I can jump in easily into the conversation. Definitely not Astrid Lindgren’s darkest, I think that honour can pretty easily go to The Brother’s Lionheart. But hey! I can just watch the live-action movie version of the book since it’s available! Yay!
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Yay! I think in America, I only read Pippi Longstocking and Ronia. And Pippi was everywhere, as a cartoon and a Halloween costume and all kinds of things. But Ronia was kind of a weird book to read, and her other stuff was REALLYweird. So strange that she had this one big crossover hit, and her other books just were never as big in America.
On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 4:45 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think cultural differences have to do with it. Like her series on Emil of Lönneberga, which is VERY Swedish by its culture, since it’s set in a small farming town in the 19th century/the early 1900s and Karlsson on the roof, about a boy who flies. Needless to say, I grew up with all of her work and even once went to the Astrid Lindgren museum in Stockholm when I was a kid, where they had a scary ride about all her stories. It was like Disney Snow White ride scary levels and I’ve never forgotten it.
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Oh, is that the one Girl with the Dragon Tattoo kept referencing? It was really disorienting to have this “Familiar” reference to something I didn’t know.
On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 4:55 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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No, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth is a twisted homage to Pippi Longstocking.
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Then I wonder what I am thinking of? There’s something I read that kept referencing “Emil the Detective” like I was supposed to know what it was, and I didn’t.
On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 6:07 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Emil and the detectives (at least that would be a direct translation) is a German children’s book by Erich Kästner – and the reason Emil from Lönneberga is called Michel here, to avoid confusing them.
And I agree about the brothers Lionheart. It’s so easy to read it as the kid dying for real in the end. We mostly reread the simple, happy, everyday Madita and Bullerbü stories, so even Mio my Mio seems dark in comparison.
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My goodness, there’s a whole world of Astrid Lindgren I’ve never read! But I am probably too old now.
On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 12:18 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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You won’t go wrong with reading them to your nephew in a few years.
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Oh fun! Right now of course he just likes Where’s Your Hate Abe Lincoln and sometimes “Doggies-A Counting and Barking Book”
On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 9:21 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Astrid Lindgren’s Six Bullerby Children / The Children of Noisy Village is a required reading in Polish schools. In fact it’s the only book of her I read.
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Really? I wouldn’t have thought she spread so much around Europe!!!
Anyway, you should check out Ronia if you can. Your son might be the right age for it too (assuming he is okay with reading books about girls)
On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 9:31 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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