The Dangerous Journey: A Tale of Moomin Valley

The Dangerous Journey is full of whimsy, adventure, and imagination as it follows Susanna on her journey through Moomin Valley. Susanna starts her day bored and cranky, but, when she puts on a mysterious pair of glasses, she finds herself transported to a new world! Everything is strange and spooky, and she flees from creatures and footprints alike. Eventually she meets some beings that turn out to be rather nice, and they band together to continue their journey. What started as a terrifying trip to an unknown place finishes as a grand adventure with new friends.

On the surface, The Dangerous Journey looks like an ordinary picture book, but, once you begin to read the complicated and lengthy text, it becomes apparent that this book is more suited to older readers. The text rhymes and plays with sentence structure and sound which makes it difficult to read out loud, but, with a lot of practice, it would be a delight to hear the many mixed-up sounds the characters speak: “We’re frabsolutely eezing! Let’s go hack bome for nice drarm winks, and please don’t think we’re teasing!” The story, itself, is hard to follow as there are so many invented words and names that you get lost very easily. There isn’t a lot of description as to what is happening as the text focuses mainly on the setting and creatures involved.

Once you get past the text, the standout feature of The Dangerous Journey is clearly the illustrations with their unique style and colours, and Jansson’s imagination shines through the pages and makes you want to jump inside the book and go on the journey yourself.

Overall,The Dangerous Journey is a lovely book to look at it, but multiple readings may be required to understand the text.