tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post9018977718315674069..comments2024-03-28T14:05:25.134-07:00Comments on Sacnoth's Scriptorium: The New CalendarJohn D. Rateliffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12324926298336489295noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-23986177507850634132015-11-09T21:22:59.333-08:002015-11-09T21:22:59.333-08:00I remember writing a response to you about Jansson...I remember writing a response to you about Jansson and Kendall, but I think I must have lost it when I tried to post it. Sorry if I posted it to the wrong comment or something.... just don't approve this, then, and let me know where it is. I consider Jansson one of the finest and most important writers for children. Like a few other writers, some of her books are scarcely children's books at all, but it's kind of hard to imagine how someone who hadn't read the earlier books would read or receive the more adult book. I love _Finn Family Moomintroll_, with its story of the Hobgoblin's Hat, and the Hemulen, and all of the other characters, and I loved it when I first read an excerpt in an anthology when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade (same place I read an excerpt from _The Hobbit_, and many other books, such as _the Good Master_ and _Alice_ and so on), and then found the book in the public library. But, it's a story for early and middle grades readers, I think, and probably only a few adult readers will really appreciate it, coming to it later in life, except possibly through their children's eyes. But the stories in the later books are too old for some of the younger readers of the early books like that one. By the time you come to _Tales from Moominvalley_, and especially _Moominvalley in November_, a fabulous meditation on aging and death, it's hard to imagine the third graders who will really appreciate that. I urge you to try at least a couple of the _Tales_, they're just fine stories, perhaps "The Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters" or "The Invisible Child," two of my favorites. The latter was adapted to a play at the Children's Theatre Company, back in the 70s or 80s, I believe, though I did not see it. The last time I reread the book, for a Rivendell discussion a year or so back, I found that I particularly liked a couple of other stories, too, some that I had thought a little too much like other stories, her rewrite of Wilde's "The Selfish Giant" as "The Hemulen Who Loved Silence," and "The Last Dragon," I'm finally old enough to understand why she had to retell the same basic story, and that the way she tells it places it in Moominvalley for her readers, and I can still read Wilde's story, too. David Lenanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03924913099478464694noreply@blogger.com