I often find January a difficult month. The preparations and festivities of Christmas are over and there can seem little to look forward to but cold, grey days. So this year I have made a conscious effort to embrace my hibernating and nesting instinct, make the most of taking things a little slower and not wish time away. I have indulged in some comfort reading including a favourite of mine, Moominland Midwinter.

Moomins usually hibernate in the Winter but in this book  Moomintroll wakes up and experiences winter for the first time. This wintery world is all very strange and confusing for him.

Moomintroll so wants to understand the winter and asks Too-ticky, who he meets while out exploring, “Tell me about the snow…I don’t understand it.” Too-ticky replies “I don’t either,”… “You think it’s white, but at times it looks pink, and another time it’s blue. It can be softer than anything, and then again harder than stone. Nothing is certain.”

Moomintroll discovers that winter is a time when unknown creatures come out and that there are different traditions. Too-ticky tells him that “There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum…And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep – then they appear.”

The extreme cold means that food runs out to the north of Moomin valley and lots of little creatures come looking for food and shelter. Moomintroll gives them a home and realises that his worries about the family’s jam stock being eaten are really not that important compared to the troubles of the travellers.

There are wonderful descriptions and illustrations of wintery-ness, here Moomintroll sees falling snow for the first time. “There was nothing in sight except falling snow, and Moomintroll was caught by the same kind of excitement he used to feel at times when he was wading out for a swim…’So that’s winter too!’ he thought. ‘You can even like it!”

There is much more I could write about this book but actually I urge you to read it. This is definitely a book that can help to build a better world (see this article by S F Said in The Guardian).

The work of Tove Jansson is such an inspiration to me, her writing style, illustrations, insight, philosophy. Re-reading this book has helped me with my own winter journey.