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Loading... The Christmas Tomtenby Viktor Rydberg
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On Christmas Eve, Vigg is invited to accompany the Christmas tomten on his rounds which include a stop at the Hall of the Mountain King. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)398.2Social sciences Customs, Etiquette, Folklore Folklore Folk literatureLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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A sweet holiday tale, once which draws upon traditional Swedish folk beliefs, The Christmas Tomten is an interesting mix, to my way of thinking, of old-fashioned morality, and progressive optimism. On the one hand, you have the climactic judgment scene, with its explicitly didactic purpose of inculcating gratitude in young people, for the blessings they do enjoy - I was reminded of the conclusion of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, in which the heroine's eventual fate depends on children being good or bad - but on the other hand, you have the episode in which the Christmas Tomten convinces a runaway farm tomten to return to his post, despite the drunkenness of the father of the family, and the shrillness of its mother, holding out the hope that help (in the form of kindness and gifts) might change them for the better. The artwork, done by Harald Wiberg - whose other tomten-related titles include Astrid Lindgren's The Tomten and The Tomten and the Fox, as well as his own Christmas at the Tomten's Farm - is just lovely, as one would expect. I think that the scenes here are a little more colorful, than in some of Wiberg's other books, but that doesn't surprise, as so many of them are indoors, and feature a different kind of light, than the winter-night landscapes so common in the others. Recommended to all young tomten lovers, and to anyone who enjoys Wiberg's artwork! ( )