The Summer Book - Tove Jansson

The Summer Book is one of ten novels that Tove Jansson, best known as the creator of the Moomin series, wrote for adults. It deals with a summer spent on a small island by an elderly grandmother, her granddaughter Sophia and her Papa. It is a summer of exploration, philosophy and play, beginning with the new growth of spring and ending with the drawing in of autumn. As well as dealing with the turning of the seasons, it deals with a view of life from both ends of the spectrum as Sophia grows and learns, and Grandmother stoicly faces her own aging.

It is not a sentimental book, by any stretch of the imagination, although it does conjure a vivid picture of island life. Jansson wrote it in 1972 after the death of her mother, who is the inspiration for the grandmother of the book, and it is clearly autobiographical with reflections on life and mortality. The island and its house that forms the setting for the book, is also based on the island where she lived for many years in the house built by herself and her brother Lars. Sophia, Lars’ daughter, is the model for Sophia in the book and she is by turns charming, precocious and infuriating in a way that any six year old is wont to be.

Many of the incidents and the rhythms of life – the hidden and magical places, the delicate mosses, the rocky bays and capricious seas – will be familiar to those who have read the moomin books, particularly Moominpapa at Sea. This is a book that deserves to be read slowly, on a hot summer’s day, sat outside with a cooling breeze.