Book By Its Cover

10.24.07
Who will Comfort Toffle? (a tale of Moomin Valley)
Tove Jansson

I went to the best little store this weekend in a second floor building in SoHo called Kiosk on suggestion from my friend Liz. It is pretty awesome. The owner Alisa Grifo takes a trip to a different foriegn country every four or five months and comes back with all kinds of interesting treasures to sell from board games to water kettles to handmade slippers. Anything with a cool unique design to it. These items are limited, it sort of feels like a gallery. But there is a small section of items that they sell ongoing. They sell them from their store but also online here. Right now they have items from Finland (speaking of Finland- yesterdays post too) and one of those items is this children’s book Who will Comfort Toffle?. How could anyone resist the bright beautiful illustrations in this book? Toffle is a little boy in Moomin Valley who is too lonely so he goes out into the world on an adventure to find a friend. He sees all different kinds of creatures and people but none talk to him. Then he finds a bottle with a note inside from a little lonely girl Miffle who is looking for a friend to rescue her from the Groke. So off Toffle goes to find and save Miffle. This book is the translated English version and the story is rhyming (Sophie Hannah created the rhyme for this version). The text is all handdrawn which is a nice touch, especially Toffle and Miffle’s names which are made a little more scripty and bolder. This book was first published in 1960 but remains one of Tove Jansson’s most popular. Tove Jansson is one of Scandinavia’s best known children’s book authors famous for her Moomin characters. Check out this Moomin site here. I love those wacky characters. Apparently there has been television series, a movie and a theme park all based around them. You can get a lot of the Moomin series easily here but this book is much harder to find. So thanks Kiosk for bringing it to us. If you’re in NY you should definitely check the store out.

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15 Comments
10/24/07  9:34am
sia wrote

I seriously <3 that book. I read it in Stockholm when I did an apartment switch with Emma from emmas designblogg… wonderful illustrations + story indeed.
10/24/07  11:32am
natalie wrote

toffle! not toggle.

truly heartbreakingly beautiful, and kiosk is a great great great store. they also make a zine of everything they sell from a given country, with all their writeups, which they sell for $10…
10/24/07  11:38am
julia wrote

whoops- that’s so funny- toggle- wrong key. thanks natalie.
10/25/07  12:11am
sosser wrote

oh, i’ve been trying (in vain) to order this book at work! we love all things moomin - and tove jansson. the summer book is also lovely (tho moominless).
10/26/07  11:36am
Miguel Tanco wrote

love the cover, pretty funny!
10/26/07  1:49pm
peacay wrote

Thanks Julia, they’re beautiful. I remember first learning of Tove Jansson ages ago when I did a post on trolls and I heard she was internationally famous for the moomins. “The what?”, I said to myself.
I must be old - I still haven’t come across the moomins or any other of her works out ‘there’ in real life. Wonderful colours and contrast.
10/30/07  6:14pm
Pip wrote

Ouch. This is so good it makes my stomach hurt. I’m amazed I haven’t seen it before.. its just SO great. Thanks so much for showing me -now begins the task of tracking it down!
10/31/07  2:39pm
Boopy wrote

Is this the same (or roughly the same) version that can be found on amazon ?
Where can i buy it ?
10/31/07  2:50pm
julia wrote

Boopy- the link to Kiosk’s online store is above. You can purchase it there.

Amazon has other Moomin books but looks like they don’t have this particular one.
11/1/07  1:16pm
Josephine wrote

I love Moomin! I watched the tv show in South Africa, when I was younger — it was a Japanese adaptation of the Finnish books, dubbed into Afrikaans.
11/4/07  1:03pm
joe snivel wrote

I too have been looking, no luck yet.
I did just find 2 very rare Moomin plates on ebay, 1 I think is very rare and is the same as the cover on the book?
if someone knows where I can get this book
please post here.
thanks
11/4/07  7:40pm
julia wrote

Joe– as I mentioned in my above text and also in a comment- you can get this book HERE.
11/19/07  5:58pm
ellen Crimi-Trent wrote

I will have to check that store out when I go to NYC in Jan! Especially before the SCBWI confrence in February!
12/27/07  3:25am
leah wrote

this is my favourite book from childhood! i inherited the copy that my dad had when he was a little boy. one day i am going to get the last illustration tattoo’d on my arm :)
05/11/08  6:10pm
miffle & norbert « a life like clouds wrote

[…] tried may know. after reading the review of “Who Will Comfort Toffle?” over at Book By It’s Cover, i had to get it of course. i managed to find a dealer in the UK through alibris who had a copy in […]

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