by Ángeles de Hita - Jun 1, 2025.
In this fifth READING ROOM, we explore the life and work of Tove Jansson—an artist, writer, and thinker who created a world where difference is welcomed, imagination is essential, and kindness is a form of strength.
Though widely known for inventing the Moomins, her universe extends far beyond children's literature. She was also a painter, political cartoonist, and someone who moved easily between different kinds of art. Her stories and images encourage us to pause, feel, and think—a quiet reminder to slow down in a busy world.
Born in 1914 in Helsinki, she grew up in an artistic household. Her mother was an illustrator and graphic designer, her father a sculptor. Art was part of daily life, not something separate or elevated. It was how she explored, observed, and made sense of things.
The first Moomin story, The Moomins and the Great Flood (1945), appeared during the final months of World War II. It introduced readers to a quiet, open-hearted world, Moominvalley, a place shaped by curiosity, mutual care, and a sense of home. Over time, the Moomin books became more layered and philosophical, always maintaining their playful spirit. They spoke to children with gentleness, and to adults with a subtle, comforting honesty.
Her writing touches on themes like freedom, chosen family, solitude, and the changing seasons of life. She created a literary and visual world that respects the emotional intelligence of children -never talking down to them, but inviting them to feel, think, and wonder freely.
Moominvalley isn’t a utopia, it has fear, loss, and uncertainty, but it is a place where these feelings are allowed, understood, and met with care.
The Moomins didn’t stay in books alone. In the 1950s, Tove began drawing a long-running comic strip, which was published in The Evening News, one of the largest newspapers in the UK at the time. The strip reached hundreds of thousands of readers, introducing new stories, characters, and everyday moments from Moominvalley to a wide international audience. It was later continued by her brother, Lars Jansson.
While the Moomins brought her global recognition, her creative life was far more expansive. She studied art in Helsinki, Stockholm, and Paris, and spent much of her life painting, illustrating, and designing everything from stage sets to large-scale murals.
She also kept painting throughout her life, creating landscapes, portraits, abstract works, and even large-scale murals. Even though her artwork is less well known than her writing, it was always an important part of how she expressed herself.
In the 1930s and 40s, she contributed political cartoons to the Finnish magazine Garm. These illustrations, filled with sharp lines and wit, stood firmly against fascism and authoritarianism. Even then, early Moomin-like figures began to appear—quiet symbols of hope, independence, and playfulness in the margins of a tense historical moment.
Tove Jansson was also a queer woman who lived openly and unapologetically in a time when queer identities were rarely acknowledged in public life. Her long-time partner, the artist Tuulikki Pietilä, inspired the character of Too-Ticky: practical, wise, and quietly radical. Together, they spent many summers on the small island of Klovharu in the Gulf of Finland—a windswept, quiet place that shaped the tone of her later writing.
In her final decades, she turned toward writing for adults. Novels like The Summer Book, Fair Play, and The True Deceiver are simple and thoughtful, looking at life with the same honesty and care as her children’s books—just from a more grown-up point of view. They speak of aging, love, misunderstanding, creativity, and the fragile architecture of everyday life.
She left behind a body of work full of care and meaning. She didn’t simplify the world for her readers, regardless of age, but instead offered spaces of beauty and truth, where imagination could coexist with honesty, and where every character, no matter how shy or strange, had a place to belong.
