Secrecy and Weirdness: Tove Jansson’s Moomin
![](https://www.cbcbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/moomin-1-300x212.jpg)
![moomin_illustration](https://cbcbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/moomin_illustration-1-400x400.jpg)
“The secret places in children’s books don’t just make children feel special; they make them feel recognized as people, layered and large and complex enough to hold something hidden inside. Perhaps, too, they represent a part of the self that is drawn to strangeness and ambiguity, to unnameable emotions and unrealistic goals, but can be lost as we grow to understand the world better; a part we forget when we have to grow up.”
![Tove Jansson, making clay models of her Moomins](https://cbcbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/tove-1.jpg)