Page 45 Review by Stephen
"So Toffle trudges westwards, though in fact he doesn't know
Where he'll end up or what to do or where on earth to go."
Been there, done that, didn't dare speak to anyone.
Nor does young Toffle. All alone in the dark, he sets out through a forest of fog in search of company, but he just can't summon the courage to join the happy throngs of Fillyjonks and Whompses who seem to know, instinctively, how to have fun. Instead he watches them from afar and, of course, that makes him lonelier still. It's only when he receives a message in a bottle, a cry for help from someone else, that he puts aside his own fears to comfort another, and in so doing he discovers the joy of friendship. Aww.
I can see this speaking to so many children, and poet Sophie Hannah has done a cracking job with Silvester Mazzarella's translation of Tove's Scandinavian, reconfiguring it into English rhyme, whilst Tove's strange Moomin Valley creatures cavort merrily across the album-sized pages in the brightest of hues that a young soul could want.
