Comments (5)

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 -

Comments (1)

By Mom Unplugged, February 23, 2007 6:44 pm

Astrid Lindgren, the author of the well known Pippi Longstocking series, also wrote this lesser known set of books about a pack of children from three small farms in Sweden. If I had discovered this as a child, I would have LOVED it! I think all children love simple, “nice” stories about children having fun adventures.

I bought this for Christmas thinking that my first-grader might eventually enjoy it. One boring, snowy Sunday in January, my two oldest kids (4 and 6) and I sat on the sofa in front of the fire and I began reading. I planned on reading just one or two chapters, however they would not let me stop until we had read the entire book. They laughed and laughed, and were genuinely interested in the antics of the children. Even I found the book charming, witty, and engaging.

We have since bought the other title in the series, Happy Times in Noisy Village, and my daughter did a school book report on it.

I recommend The Children of Noisy Village to any intermediate-level reader, or any family looking for a “nice” book about simple childhood fun.

The Children of Noisy Village and Happy Times in Noisy Village are chapter books, however there are also two other short, picture-type books: Christmas in Noisy Village and Springtime in Noisy Village. We have the Christmas book which is a good, short bedtime-read. The Springtime book is harder to come by.

If anyone knows of any other books in this series, please comment. I would love to find more!