"The Moomin family strays far from the tranquil charms of Moominvalley: on the French Riviera, Moominpappa gets drunk and Moomin's sweetheart, the Snork Maiden, is seduced by a toothy film star. But then the hattifatteners appear--mute, sock-like animals that grow from seeds and chase after electric storms . . . Here is where Jansson's weird but true world begins; where fear, loneliness and insecurity are banished by love and the force of imagination." --Time.com

"[Jansson's] strips, more than 800 in five years, stand as perennial classics of children's literature across the Nordic lands . . . Their belated recovery from crumbling newsprint into five eventual volumes seems almost as fantastical and life-affirming as the Moomin fables themselves." --"The Independent"