Reading: The Summer Book

The Summer Book is a novel for adults by Tove Jansson, better known to most people as the creator of the Moomins. It's a slight book (I read it in an evening), slow and beautiful, a series of episodes from the lives of a grandmother and granddaughter spending a summer (or maybe several summers merged together) on an island in the Gulf of Finland, very like the one where Jansson and her own family spent summers.

The descriptions of the island and life in the archipelago are gorgeous, and I liked the grandmother a lot; part Moominmamma, part Esmeralda Weatherwax, but mostly just herself, a wonderful, engaging woman I felt I would love to meet. I found it harder to warm to the little girl, who came across as something of a brat, although that may be because I don't have a great deal of familiarity with little girls. Overall, though, this is a lovely book, and a book full of warmth and long summer evenings is a perfect read for chilly early March.