The Moomins’ 80th birthday draws fans across Europe for special event
Fans flocked to Tampere in southern Finland to celebrate the country’s most lovable literary cartoon family, created by author Tove Jansson
The Moomins, Finland’s most lovable literary cartoon family, are celebrating their 80th birthday this year.
The chubby, white, hippopotamus-like characters have captivated readers worldwide since author and illustrator Tove Jansson published The Moomins and the Great Flood in 1945, a children’s book that features Moomintroll and Moominmamma in their search for the missing Moominpappa.
Jansson, a Swedish-speaking Finn who died in 2001, went on to write eight more books, multiple picture books and a comic strip about the Moomins in Swedish.
The series, set in the fictional Moominvalley, has been translated into more than 60 languages. It has sparked movie and TV adaptations, children’s plays, art gallery exhibitions, an eponymous museum, and theme parks in Finland and Japan. Finnair has even put Moomins on its aeroplanes.
On August 9, fans flocked to Tampere in southern Finland – home of the Moomin Museum – for a special event at the Tampere Hall to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the 1945 publication as well as Jansson’s birthday, who was born on August 9, 1914.