Astrid Lindgren

December 18, 2017
Andersen’s lively biography, the first of Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002) to appear in English, reveals the Pippi Longstocking creator to be a Pippi-like force to be reckoned with: a loving mother, gifted writer, marketing genius, and influential editor. In the process, Andersen tracks Sweden’s transformation from a conservative, hierarchical society into a more open, inclusive one. The author describes how in 1926, Lindgren, then 19, unmarried, and pregnant with her first child, traveled to Copenhagen to give birth in secret and avoid social stigma. He follows her through her work (what she called “my dirty job”) censoring overseas mail for the neutral Swedish government during WWII. He then describes how, in the optimistic period following the war, Lindgren conceived of the independent, fair-minded Pippi (“Is it possible to imagine a greater contrast with the sinister Nazis?” Andersen asks). Andersen also introduces a number of powerful and influential women—e.g., Lindgren’s editor Elsa Olenius, her friend and confidante Louise Hartung—who together were determined to liberalize society through children’s literature. The first Pippi Longstocking book was
a hit, not only rescuing Lindgren’s
publisher from near bankruptcy but
providing a new symbol of child empowerment. Filled with photos and remarkable details from Lindgren’s voluminous diaries, Andersen’s biography is a delight.

Starred review from December 15, 2017
Insightful, elegantly written biography of the beloved author of the Pippi Longstocking tales, a complex woman of parts."Life is not as rotten as it seems." It's not much of an affirmation, but, Danish biographer and literary critic Andersen (Hans Christian Andersen, 2005) suggests, it was about the best that Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002) could do. Born into a family of farmers who instilled in her the virtues of hard work and a certain Nordic stoicism, Lindgren started off as a teenager fresh out of school working as a journalist--and quickly became pregnant by the mercurial editor, who, though "neither a journalist nor an author...could hear the difference between good and bad storytelling." One wishes for Lindgren's sake that he had been a better man, but the editor clearly knew that Lindgren had a gift. It was, Andersen writes, a gift laden with psychological insecurities. Without being too obvious about it, many of Lindgren's stories were about loneliness, isolation, and depression, and while she reckoned, following a researcher's findings, that Hans Christian Andersen wrote about death in "five-sixths" of his stories, she kept pace: "the same goes for my fairy-tales," she said, "more or less." Lindgren wrote in a range of genres, including books for grown-ups that included crime stories, comedies, and fables as well as her famed writings for young readers; many, as Andersen recounts, had a political edge as well as a psychological dimension, some specifically anti-Nazi. A fascinating aspect of the book is Andersen's theory of the origins of the Pippi Longstocking stories in debates about childhood education, for while Lindgren wrote about the effects of loneliness on children, she also posited a world in which children could play freely, of a kind with and drawing on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables, and, unexpectedly, the Superman comic book franchise.Readers who grew up on Lindgren's stories will find this excellent book irresistible--and often surprising.

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Starred review from February 1, 2018
Pippi Longstocking, the first modern Supergirl, was forged in the crucible of WWII as her creator, Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002), struggled to fathom the evil at loose in the world in her now-acclaimed war diary and worked for Swedish Intelligence, reading the mail of thousands of citizens. Lindgren switched to perusing fan letters after her first Pippi Longstocking book came out in 1945thanks to an innovative children's librarian, Elsa Oleniusand became an instant sensation. Fearless, invincible, cheerful, generous, and funny, young Pippi was the perfect antidote to the poison of war. Andersen deftly tracks Lindgren's swerving path to fame as a revolutionary children's author; her precocious and promising start in journalism was derailed after an affair with her much older, married boss left her pregnant at 19. Astutely mining archival sources, Andersen sensitively elucidates the anguish Lindgren and her son, Lars, endured while, to avoid scandal, they remained apart until Lindgren, working as a secretary, married her new boss. The family grew to four, and Lindgren drew on her profound empathy and respect for children to write (in shorthand) her many beloved books. Andersen incisively and resonantly chronicles the evolution of Lindgren's progressive work and its impact, along with her influence as a children's-book editor and environmental activist, bringing to new light a writer as empowered and exhilarating as her most cherished creation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)