Will I love The Summer Book?

It's a quiet book, about a child spending time with a grandmother on an island. It's told in separate scenes that give a sense of nostalgia and deep love. There isn't a wasted word in it. It's more like poetry than prose.

Fierce, small, quiet, and bracing. I read this on the plane to Finland and am still thinking about it, many months later.

I was tempted to pick the ever-welcoming Moominhouse as my final choice – Mooninvalley is a place I return to often – but in the end, I’ve gone for one of Tove Jansson’s real-world stories.

Based on her own family’s summer house, The Summer Book is set on an islet in the Gulf of Finland, and centres around the relationship between a six-year-old girl, Sophia, and her grandmother. Almost nothing happens – but the island is a world in itself, alive with so many tiny details.

Like Jansson’s Moomin stories, it’s a book you can keep coming back to… show more.

I love this book so much that I reread it every year. I read it in its original Swedish but the English translation is good, too.

I grew up “on” Tove Jansson, genius creator of the Moomintrolls. This book is for adults. It is gentle, yet piercing. An old woman and her granddaughter have small adventures and conversations about what matters, on a remote Finnish island. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is magic. It features illustrations (by the author) which take you right to the soulful setting.

This is one of those books that makes you… show more.

This little book is a gem that I just read for the first time recently. It’s the kind of book I would read with a pencil nearby for there are gems here, of descriptive prowess and of wisdom. It is the story of a grandmother and her young granddaughter alone on a remote Finnish island spending the summer at their little cottage as they always do. The days are long, sleepy, and lush with swims in the sea, berry collecting, and conversations between an inquisitive seven-year-old and her grandmother. The grandmother has a way of guiding the child in and… show more.

When I first came to read this autobiographical description of the friendship between a little girl and her grandmother it was almost like reading about my own childhood. It is set on island in the Finnish archipelago, not dissimilar to the island where I used to spend my own summers with my grandmother. Read it and you will understand what made Tove Jansson the wonderful author and creator of the Moomin Troll stories. A book to read to be reminded of kindness and humanity. I return to it often.