WHEN ASTRID LINDGREN, the famous children’s author, ran up against the crushing Swedish tax laws, she fought back with the most effective weapon of all—her talent as a storyteller.
On a cold autumn night in Stockholm in 1941, a seven-year-old girl named Karin, who had been bedridden for weeks with a lung inflammation, called out to her mother. Karin had run through all the stories her parents knew, and she was beginning to wear out her mother’s patience. So when Astrid Lindgren came into her daughter’s room, she announced she was out of stock of stories and that Karin would have to produce a subject. Her daughter paused a moment, then blurted, “Tell me about Pippi Longstocking!”
Astrid Lindgren had never heard that peculiar name before, because Karin had just invented it. But sitting at her daughter’s bedside, she began to tell about a pig-tailed little girl who is strong enough to carry a horse, lives alone with a monkey named Mr Nilsson, sleeps with her feet on the pillow and generally does what no-one else would dare do.
That’s Pippi. And that was how Astrid Lindgren, then 34 and wife of Sture Lindgren of the Swedish Motorists Association, accidentally started a career that would make her the author of some 60 children’s books. Pippi has been translated into 28 languages (including Japanese, Afrikaans and SerboCroatian). In the Soviet Union, where more than 2.2 million Astrid-Lindgren books are in print, they are handed from child to child until they are dogeared. Pippi has even leapt on to the screen as the heroine of an immensely popular movie and later as the star of an international television series.
Denne historien er fra March 2021-utgaven av Reader's Digest India.
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Denne historien er fra March 2021-utgaven av Reader's Digest India.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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BOOKS
Books review
STUDIO - Off Lamington Road by Gieve Patel
Oil on Canvas, 54 x 88 in
NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF MEDICINE
FOODS THAT FIGHT DEMENTIA
TO HELL AND BACK
The Darvaza crater in Turkmenistan is known as the Gates of Hell. I stood on its edge - and lived to tell the tale
THE SNAKE CHARMERS
Invasive Burmese pythons are squeezing the life out of Florida's vast Everglades. An unlikely sisterhood is taking them on
Sisterhood to Last a Lifetime
These college pals teach a master class in how to maintain a friendship for 50-plus years
...TO DIE ON A HOCKEY RINK
ONE MINUTE I WAS PLAYING IN MY BEER LEAGUE, THE NEXT I WAS IN THE HOSPITAL
Just Sit Tight
Broken, battered and trapped in a ravine for days, I desperate driver wonders, \"Will anyone find me?\"
Allow Me to Mansplain...
If there's one thing we know, it's this: We're a nation of know-it-alls
THE BITTER TRUTH ABOUT SUGAR (AND SUGAR SUBSTITUTES!)
It's no secret that we have a serious addiction. Here's how to cut back on the sweet stuff, once and for all.