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By Mom Unplugged, October 16, 2008 1:39 pm

I am on a roll with Swedish children’s books after last week’s recommendation of Astrid Lindgren’s The Children of Noisy Village and Happy Times in Noisy Village. That post reminded me of Maj Lindman’s two lovely series: Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and Snipp, Snapp, Snurr.

Don’t you love it when you wander into a thrift store and discover something wonderful? I know I do. It always brightens my day when that happens. Snipp, Snapp, Snurr, and the Reindeer and Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and the Three Kittens were that kind of happy thrift store find!

The Snipp, Snap, Snurr series (first published in the U.S. in 1957) is about three adventurous little Swedish boys in, I would estimate, the 1930′s or ’40′s. Although the books seem to be written with boys in mind, my daughters love them too.

The Flicka, Ricka, Dicka books (first U.S. publication was 1941) are about (you guessed it!) three adventurous little Swedish girls of that era. Again, although targeted toward girls, my son loves these books as much as his sisters do.

The books are short, about 24 pages each. Since each two page spread includes one page of text (in very large type) and a wonderful Maj Lindman 1950′s-style illustration on the facing page, there are really only 12 pages of text per book. There are no chapters, but these are entirely suitable for beginning chapter book readers since they are so short and fairly simple:

Each book involves an innocent adventure with a little bit of minor drama (boys lost in the snow, a missing cat, etc.) that is, of course, always happily resolved. None of it is too suspenseful or frightening which makes it appropriate for even the youngest new readers.

Also, if you don’t mind buying from Amazon, they are all part of the 4-for-3 promotion so you could get four of these wonderful Maj Lindman books for the price of three!

Our first two:

The others (those that are easily available in the U.S.):

Snipp, Snapp, Snurr -

Flicka, Ricka, Dicka -