After my really good experience with Moominpapa at Sea, I decided to borrow another Moomin book when I went to the library. This time, I selected Moominland Midwinter, completely randomly.

In Moominland Midwinter, Moomintroll wakes up midway through the winter hibernation only to find that he can’t go back to sleep! Awake and a little lonely, he decides to venture out into Moominvalley and discovers a world very unlike what he knows.

As with Moominpapa at Sea, I found this to be such a charming book. It’s quite episodic, since the whole story is about Moomintroll exploring the Moominvalley in winter and meeting creatures that he’s never met before. LittleMy makes an appearance, and I heard about her sister for the first time, though she never really appears in the book. There’s also a new character called Too-Ticky who lives in the summer bathhouse and has lines like:

“It’s always like this in their adventures. To save and be saved. I wish somebody would write a story about the people who warm up the heroes afterwards.”

Apart from the new cast of characters, I noticed a stronger authorial voice in this book. There are one or two footnotes about things that happen in the book, and Jansson even talks about where the book could have stopped and why she continues the book. I thought these interludes were very charming and the breaking of the fourth wall really appealed to me.

As with Moominpapa at Sea, I found myself really loving the character of Moominmama (Moominpapa, by contrast, is almost entirely absent from this book). Even though she only makes an appearance at the end, the loving way she reacts to all the events of the book that happens really made me admire her – Moomintroll is very lucky to have her and I’m so glad that he knows it!

Overall, I find myself really enchanted by this series and I would definitely continue reading the books.