Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren.
Title: Pippi Longstocking.
Author: Astrid Lindgren.
Genre: Children's lit, coming-of-age, humour, YA.
Country: Sweden.
Language: Swedish.
Publication Date: November, 1945.
Summary: Tommy and his sister Annika have a new neighbor, and her name is Pippi Longstocking. She has crazy red pigtails, no parents to tell her what to do, a horse that lives on her porch, and a pet monkey named Mr. Nilsson. Whether Pippi’s scrubbing her floors, doing arithmetic, or stirring things up at a fancy tea party, her flair for the outrageous always seems to lead to another adventure.
My rating: 8/10
♥ "Suppose you go home now," said Pippi, "so that you can come back tomorrow. Because if you don't go home you can't come back, and that would be a shame."
♥ They went on. Suddenly Pippi gave a terrific yell. "Well, I never saw the like," she cried, as she picked up a large, rusty old tin can from the grass. "What a find! What a find! Cans - that's something you can never have too many of."
Tommy looked at the can doubtfully. "What can you use it for?"
"Oh, you can use it in all sorts of ways," said Pippi. "One way is to put cookies in it. Then it becomes a delightful Jar with Cookies. Another way is not to put cookies in it. Then it becomes a Jar without Cookies. That certainly isn't quite so delightful, but still that's good too."
She examined the can, which was indeed rusty and had a hole in the bottom.
"It looks almost as if this were a Jar without Cookies," she said thoughtfully. "But you can put it over your head and pretend that it is midnight."
♥ "When Mamma and Papa have a party the gentlemen always get cards telling them what ladies to take in to dinner. I think we ought to have cards too."
"Okay," said Pippi.
"Although it will be kind of hard for us because I'm the only gentleman here," added Tommy doubtfully.
"Fiddlesticks," said Pippi. "Do you think Mr. Nilsson is a lady, maybe?"
"Oh, of course not, I forgot Mr. Nilsson," said Tommy, and he sat down on the woodbox and wrote on a card:
Mr. Settergren will have the pleasure of taking Miss Longstocking in to dinner.
"Mr. Settergren, that's me," said he with satisfaction and showed Pippi the card. Then he wrote on the next card:
Mr. Nilsson will have the pleasure nof taking Miss Settergren in to dinner.
"Okay, but the horse must have a card too," said Pippi decidedly, "even if he can't sit at the table."
So Tommy, at Pippi's dictation, wrote:
The horse will have the pleasure of remaining in the corner where he will be served cakes and sugar.
♥ "Never let children handle firearms," said Pippi and took a pistol in each hand and prepared to fire. "Otherwise some accident can easily happen," she said, shooting off both pistols at once. "That was a good bang," she announced and looked up at the ceiling. The bullets had made two holes.
"Who knows?" she said hopefully."Perhaps the bullets have gone right through the ceiling and hit some ghosts in the legs. That will teach them to think twice before they set out to scare any innocent little children again. Because even if there aren't any ghosts, they don't need to go round scaring folks out of their wits, I should think...."