When were the moomins created

Created by Swedish-speaking Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, the Moomins have been enchanting readers around the world since the first Moomin story, Moomins and the Great Flood, appeared in 1945.

This year Finland is celebrating the centenary of the birth of Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins, and one of the most successful children’s writers ever.

Moomin Theme Park, Japan

Takumi Nakayama, Director of Tuttle-Mori Agency, Moomin Characters’ licensing agent in Japan, explains: “Moomin is so popular in Japan thanks to its unique positioning as a property from the world of Scandinavian art and literature.

Picture books for Moomin fans ages 3-6 years

The bold and unconventional colors, holes in the pages, constant cliffhangers and scary landscapes – including massive vacuum cleaners and lost mothers – made the book unique, especially amongst children’s books.

The character Moomintroll was born out of chance when Tove, on one childhood summer day, discussed literary philosophy with her brother Per Olov Jansson by the outhouse next to their summer cottage in the archipelago. Tove drew the ugliest creature she could imagine on the outhouse wall.

‘ Japan has more Moomin fans than any other country and the Moomins are among the most popular and familiar fictional characters in Japan for people of all ages. A theme park devoted to the Moomins was thus an obvious thing to undertake.”

They’re so popular that someone even wrote a master’s thesis about them. You’ll see Moomin mugs in almost every kitchen in Finland. … The inventor of the Moomins was author and artist Tove Jansson (1914–2001), a Swedish-speaking Finn (Swedish is one of Finland’s official languages).

But Japan is the largest market for Moomin goods in the world and has served as a second home since the late-1960s.

Both the Japanese and Finns love the Moomins for the same reasons – simple but exciting stories, loveable characters, and a nostalgic country setting. Japanese anime fans also have a huge love of anything ‘kawaii’ (cute) and the Moomins’ chubby white bodies certainly fit that image.

In Finland, the Moomins are huge—the equivalent of Mickey Mouse and all his animated friends. Instead of Disneyland, the Finns have Moominworld.