curious:indoor vs outdoor

Tish wrote:

In a short phrase? Well worth chasing up.
The books are by the late Tove Jansson. Although originally written
in ?Finnish? (correct me if I'm wrong Marina),

Tove Jansson was a Swedish-speaker, like me, so the books were
originally written in Swedish. The attitude displayed in the books by
the Moomins is considered to be typical for us Finnish Swedes, not least
by ourselves. ;o)

the series of books has
been translated into many languages, including English. The books are
absolutely charming; slightly rebellious (to be expected, given what
I've read about Ms Jansson) and altogether delightful. Once you've
read the books, your world will be inhabited by Little My, Sniff,
Hattifatteners, Moomins (of course), the Groke and all the rest of the
cast.

It was funny to me to read the English names, since I've grown up with
the Swedish ones. Some were good translations (like the Muddler) and
others - strange. The Groke? She is called Mårran in Swedish, which I
think comes from the verb mårra, which means growl.

Here is a link to the books available through Amazon.com: (shrunk with
tinyurl.com to make it fit on a line) http://tinyurl.com/yg5xy9

Tish (a fan)

I had a feeling that you'd said you had read about the Moomins, Tish.

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 10:47:27 +0300, Marina
wrote:

It was funny to me to read the English names, since I've grown up with
the Swedish ones. Some were good translations (like the Muddler) and
others - strange. The Groke? She is called Mårran in Swedish, which I
think comes from the verb mårra, which means growl.

I think I prefer the Swedish name! Marran (with a doojit over the
first a) is much more euphonic than The Groke and I can just imagine
"Marran" spoken with *just* the right amount of menace in the voice!

Here is a link to the books available through Amazon.com: (shrunk with
tinyurl.com to make it fit on a line) http://tinyurl.com/yg5xy9

Tish (a fan)

I had a feeling that you'd said you had read about the Moomins, Tish.

Oh yes, most definitely. Our whole family are fans, to the extent
that my sister made a special visit to the Moomin theme park when she
visited Finland. I think they must have been quite popular in
Australia because the books were easily available and I know of quite
a few "kids" my age who know and love the books.

Tish