to think it's a tragedy that one of the world's greatest children's authors is so little known in the UK?

[emkana]

I'm talking about Astrid Lindgren, author of Pippi Longstocking. While the latter is obv known here she has written tons of other books and they are all amazing.

Lotta, Happy Times in Noisy Village, Karlson on the Roof for younger children.

Ronia the Robber's daughter, The Brothers Lionheart, Mio my Son for older children.

I urge you all to explore her work

www.amazon.co.uk/astrid-lindgren/s/qid=1240596155/ref=sr_pg_2?ie=UTF8&rs=&keywords=astrid%20lindgren &rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aastrid%20lindgren&page=1

I love Pippi but have never read any of the others. Will add to my Amazon wish list

Astrid Lindgren wrote Bothers Lionheart?? Good grief. I remember reading that as a child and could probably still quote bits of it now!

...Brothers, even

I KNEW it, I knew you are talking about Astrid Lindgren before I opened the link. "The Children of Bullerby", Pippi etc, some of my favourite memories from childhood

bizarre
eds1 just stared reading pippi tonight

Just finished reading Lotta to my 4.9 yr old - she absolutely loved it!!!

Dd1 loves Pippi.

dd2 loves Lotta.

in fact we often call dd2 Lotta....

bullerby children (noisy village) are SUCH great stories
we recently read emil and his clever pig and thought it quite bonkers

Have never read Emil tbh but Bullerby is just wonderful, dd's have the story CD as well (in German) and it's just so soothing and idyllic...

Madita is also brilliant.

Did you know that she had to pay 102% tax on the earnings of one of her books to the swedish government in the 70s? FACT. And to think some people on here are moaning about a measly 51!

I know, I was talking to my mum about that the other day!

They are very popular in Germany, aren't they? My dd never liked the ones we read (Lotta, Pippi) though. Don't know why, just not her type of story somehow. I don'tknow why she is not very well known in the English speaking world

please explain re: 102%

I recognise a few from my childhood.
They were fab iirc.

...however, I would questio the use of the word 'tragedy'.

Unfortunate certainly. Sad maybe.

questioN

That'll learn me.

Is Emil also a TV show in Germany?

Some policy or other where because she was self employed she had to pay income tax as well as employers fees. Caused a big hoo-hah apparently and everyone decided it was rather silly and the government got voted out at the next election.

I thought she was pretty well known, i loved Lotta as a child.

I'm sure Lauren Child will change that

I love all her books, being swedish they were an integral part of my childhood and I can't wait to share them with my girls.

absolutely agree! I grew up in Germany where she was/probably still is the most popular children's author. ever. I think Astrid even has a school named after her there. I read all her stories as a child - we even read the Brothers Lionheart in primary school.

I can only recommend her books. They are well written, witty, funny, and some of them (those aimed at slightly older children such as Brothers Lionheart or Mio) deal with serious issues such as death, betrayal, child neglect in a non-moralising way.

Or take Pippi, for instance - what a great role model! I could go on and on and on.

And another interesting fact about her, to add to catski's tax info :-) - She was a tireless campaigner against physical and verbal violence towards children. She gave an excellent speech on the subject when she received a peace prize back in 1978. if you google astrid lindgren and 'never violence' you should be able to find the english version.

Happy times in Noisy village (known as the children of bullerby in Italy) and Madicken were my favourite when i as a child, and my dc love them!

I think it's slightly more than one school.

Is Madita Madicken? Tis "Martina" in Italian. I think there was a tv show of it.