Title: The Moomins and the Great Flood
(Moomins #1)
Author: Tove Jansson
(Translated by David McDuff)
Year: 1945
Country: Finland

Format: E-book
Pages: 52
Read: 21 – 24 February 2026
First reading

Moominmamma and her son Moomintroll are looking for Moominpappa, who hasn’t come back from his latest adventure. Their search takes them through forests, swamps and mountains, meeting various weird and wonderful people along the way. A heavy rainstorm almost spells disaster, but Moominmamma and Moomintroll survive the flood and eventually find Moominpappa—and a new place to call home.

The Moomins and the Great Flood was Finland’s introduction to the Moomins, first published in 1945—but only translated into English in 2005. It was the last Moomins novel I read, and to me it feels very different from the rest of the series. For one thing it’s a much shorter book. It’s also less coherent, flitting from scene to scene without pause, like a small child breathlessly telling you a story: “And then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened…” Tove Jansson’s illustrations are (as always) utterly charming, and there’s a faint glimmer of the magic that would come in later books. But this is easily my least favourite Moomins novel of the bunch, and certainly not one I’d recommend as an introduction. Much better skip ahead to the magnificent second book, Comet in Moominland.

The edition I read did include some interesting bonus material though. There’s a nice foreword from the current Children’s Laureate, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, providing some historical context for the story. There’s also excerpts from Tove Jansson’s own notes about her characters, originally written to help prospective writers and directors of Moomins adaptations. So, while the novel itself was pretty disappointing, reading it still enhanced my apprecation for the other books in a series I’ve grown to adore.