Tove Jansson’s series of children’s books — about the Moomintroll and Moomin family —(books Jansson became famous for)…. Nora can be fired at any moment, losing the career she's worked hard for, or Derek can take the lead and declare that what they have is real.

This unusual rhyming journey through a world of dynamic story starters, was created in collaboration with twelve illustrators, to excite and engage everyone from avid book lovers, to the most reluctant readers. While it is highly unlikely that a football team has so many cinnamon roll heroes (a girl can dream), I loved how they meddled in Derek’s relationship and pushed him to admit his feelings. Sophia's endearing curiosity and strong-mindedness, her grandmother's no-nonsense brand of wisdom, are things that readers will have to discover for themselves, resistant as they are to being captured in quotations. Set upon a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland much like where Jansson’s own family spent their summers, Summer Book chronicles the interactions and adventures between a young girl, Sophia, and her grandmother as they embrace the world and all the facts of life that surround them. An island* — *summers* — “are often described as being impossible to categorize or describe, as if to suggest that they defy not only human powers of speech but also, obstinately, comprehension”.In The Summer Book, Jansson creates her own complete world, full of the varied joys and sorrows of life. But the unique-closeness they shared had something to do with ‘quantity’ time, close proximity, the ‘day-to-day’ interaction with each other. She's a queen, a crone, a woman who has outlived her husband and her son's wife and has “reached the age where a person can safely be truthful” about certain things. Her fun-loving self is a big change for the toxic masculinity in her office, and they don't think she will succeed. The idea was for Paul and Collier to experience photography as a social space, a conversation in which his body and her eyes could try and understand each other’s fascinations and fantasies.

It is the essential handbook for the scout in all of us by Bear Grylls OBE, Chief Ambassador of World Scouting. This isn’t a book in which miracles occur, and less you take into account the sleight of hand Jansson’s achieves with point of view”.The Grandmother is old and wise, but she wasn't always so, Sophia is young, a bounding, excited mess of big emotional experiences, but she won't be so for very long. Grandmothers are, after all, like fairy Godmothers, they can beat bad luck, superstition and even death; everything fits in their pockets because they fight back with the invincible weapons of wisdom, patience and unreserved love. A gift for the young goddess in your life - with life lessons for living confidently, courageously and fearlessly.

Sophia though is younger than Lea, we hear the voice of a child of between five and seven I guess; crawling, exploring and asking questions. The penultimate chapter on ‘Hobbies of the Country Housewife’ may be less useful to those of us who do not want to skin rabbits or use fowl feathers, but there are some good tips on how to deal both with unwanted insects and ‘the mischievous mouse’ and the ‘unpaid helpers of the country housewife’ such as ladybirds.So the first observation is that the author has comprehensively written herself out of the narrative, she is however the omniscient narrative voice. Both Anderson and Grandmother live at times on an island where they are tolerant, though very wary, of outsiders. We can look at it in the same old way, or we can stop and see something fresh that we hadn’t noticed previously.

An island takes note of the seasons and the shifts in weather more clearly than perhaps any other place on earth. Major events on the surrounding seas -- the wreckage of a ship carrying a load of fireworks -- are described lightly, while minor details -- the texture of moss after it has been trodden on three times -- are observed with careful honesty. Most of the stories, and I would say this is less a novel and more a collection of stories deal with the relationship between Sophia and her grandmother, and this reminded me very strongly of Lea Ypi's book Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History in which the relationship between the young Ypi and her grandmother is very important. This structure brings together works of historical importance and modern innovation to create a volume that will delight bibliophiles and anyone passionate about book design and production.Jansson transports us to this island and helps us to see it through the loving eyes of a person who has known it forever and the wondering eyes of a person who is just discovering all its hidden treasures.