Echo
Scandinavian Stories about Girls
Description:... Astrid Lindgren, Tove Jansson, Selma Lagerlof -- these are only some of the authors included in this remarkable collection of short stories and excerpts from novels and autobiographies. Editors Ia Dubois and Katherine Hanson (An Everyday Story: Norwegian Women's Fiction) have woven together a rich blend of classic and contemporary literature written for and about girls. Girls who dare to ski off high jumps, who build river dams, who scheme to get rich by selling imaginary lottery tickets. Girls who long for their parents to stop quarreling, for their mothers to act normal, for their fathers to understand them. Girls who ponder what to name themselves, how to find and keep a best friend, what their futures will be. Girls who are energetic, wild and breakers of rules. Girls who are thoughtful, astute and delightfully funny.Scandinavia has produced some of world literature's most enduring writing for and about children. Authors such as Tove Ditlevsen, Sigrid Undset, Cora Sandel and Gerd Brantenberg have created memorable portraits of girls coming of age, while Astrid Lindgren and Tove Jansson are famous world-wide for their charming books about Pippi Longstocking and the Moomin family. Although some of this literature is well-known in translation, Echo is the first time that many of these stories have been published in English. Each of the twenty-eight pieces comes with a brief introduction. With work from four countries -- Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway -- as well as minority voices of the Sami, gypsy and Jewish populations of Scandinavia, Echo is as comprehensive as it is refreshing.
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