The Summer Book

Set on a small Gulf of Finland island, Tove Jansson's novel follows six-year-old Sophia and her grandmother through one summer. Her father is there too, and the family is quietly mourning Sophia's mother, a loss none of them talks about. The grandmother is wise and a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and tends to her with care. Over twenty-two vignettes they roam the shore and forest, build bark boats and a miniature Venice, and discuss life, death, God and love, with episodes about a cave, a cat and a dressing gown. Jansson, known for her Moomin books, lived much of her life on a similar island. Thomas Teal made the English translation, and a 2024 film starred Glenn Close.

Writer Austin Kleon said Jansson's writing makes him long for island life in Finland, and found these stories less fanciful than her Moomin comics, with an undercurrent of sorrow.