Follow Pippi on Instagram. Here are some resources for your Pippi party.
Pippi Longstocking is turning 80 this year! If you know my name, you know I have a small connection with Astrid Lindgren. Of course, Lindgren was her married name. Her husband was Sture Lindgren. Her full name was Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren (Ericsson). In 1958, Astrid Lindgren received the second Hans Christian Andersen Medal for Rasmus på luffen (Rasmus and the Vagabond).
Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Långstrump) was published in November 1945 with illustrations by Ingrid Vang Nyman.
Bookseller blurb: Pippi Longstocking is nine years old. She has just moved into Villa Villekulla where she lives all by herself with a horse, a monkey, and a big suitcase full of gold coins. The grown-ups in the village try to make Pippi behave in ways that they think a little girl should, but Pippi has other ideas. She would much rather spend her days arranging wild, exciting adventures to enjoy with her neighbours, Tommy and Annika, or entertaining everyone she meets with her outrageous stories. Pippi thinks nothing of wrestling a circus strongman, dancing a polka with burglars, or tugging a bull's tail.
Did you know Pippi's full name is: Pippilotta Victoriaria Tea-cosy Appleminta Ephraim’s-daughter Longstocking.
“Her dress was curious indeed. Pippi had made it herself. It was supposed to have been blue, but as there hadn’t been quite enough blue cloth, Pippi had decided to add little red patches here and there. On her long thin legs she wore long stockings, one brown and the other black.”
“Her hair was the same colour as a carrot, and was braided in two stiff pigtails that stood straight out from her head. Her nose was the shape of a very small potato, and was dotted with freckles.”
There are three Pippi books. The series has been translated into more than 70 different languages.
- Pippi Longstocking (1945)
- Pippi Goes On Board (1946)
- Pippi In The South Seas (1948)
You can read the story of how Astrid Lindgren came to write Pippi Longstocking for her daughter Karin. I have a connection with this famous story. My father's sister (maiden name Lindgren) named her daughter Karin!
In 100 Best Books for Children, Anita Silvey praised the character as "the perfect fantasy heroine — one who lives without supervision but with endless money to execute her schemes." It is not a surprise to learn that other lists of the top 100 children's book also often include Pippi Longstocking.
Quotes from Pippi Longstocking:
“Don't you worry about me. I'll always come out on top.”
“She always slept with her feet on the pillow and her head far down under the covers. ‘That’s the way they sleep in Guatemala,’ she explained. ‘And it’s the only right way to do it. This way, I can wiggle my toes while I’m sleeping, too.‘”
“In the orchard was a cottage, and in this cottage lived Pippi Longstocking. She was nine years old, and she lived all alone. She had neither mother nor father, which was really rather nice, for in this way there was no one to tell her to go to bed just when she was having the most fun, and no one to make her take cod-liver-oil when she felt like eating peppermints.”
“Pippi was a very remarkable child, and the most remarkable thing about her was her strength. She was so strong that in all the world there was no policeman as strong as she. She could have lifted a whole horse if she had wanted to.”
Astrid Lindgren died in 2002 aged 94 but you can find out so much from the comprehensive website and of course if you visit Sweden there are places that link with the book and with other books by this famous author and a museum too.
Astrid Lindgren is also connected with IBBY:
In 1952 Jella Lepman, a courageous and visionary woman, organized a meeting in Munich, Germany, called International Understanding through Children’s Books. Many important authors, publishers, teachers and philosophers of the time attended the meeting and as a result a committee was appointed to create the International Board on Books for Young People – IBBY. A year later in 1953, IBBY was registered as a non-profit organization in Zurich, Switzerland. The founding members included: Erich Kästner, Lisa Tetzner, Astrid Lindgren, Jo Tenfjord, Fritz Brunner, Bettina Hürlimann and Richard Bamberger.
And a major award for Children's Literature is named after Astrid Lindgren. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) is the largest award of its kind. The global award is given annually to a person or organisation for their outstanding contribution to children’s and young adult literature. Our Australian Indigenous Literacy Foundation (2024) were recent winners and in the past we celebrated Australian authors - Shaun Tan (2011) and Sonya Hartnett (2008).
If you enjoy meeting Pippi Longstocking, other books with similar themes or a similarly wonderful heroine are:
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