A Pippi Longstocking Storybook / Pippi Goes on Board

1

Pippi Still Lives in Villa Villekulla

If a stranger should happen to travel to the tiny little town and perhaps quite by accident find he has wandered too far in one direction, he would see Villa Villekulla. Not that the house was much to look at, being quite an old and run--down sort of house, sitting in quite an old and overgrown garden, but the stranger might stop anyway and wonder who owned it. Naturally, all the people living in the tiny little town knew who lived in Villa Villekulla, and they also knew why there was a horse on the veranda. But someone coming from anywhere else wouldn t know that, of course. So he would probably wonder. Especially if it was getting very late and was practically dark, and he caught sight of a little girl striding around the garden even though it was so late, not looking at all as if she was thinking of going to bed. He would be bound to think:

I wonder why that little girl s mother hasn t told her it s bedtime? Every other child is in bed by now, that s for sure.

For how would the visitor know that the little girl didn t have a mother? She didn t have a father, either, for that matter, at least not one who was at home. Quite simply, she lived there all alone in Villa Villekulla. Well, perhaps not really all alone, to be absolutely accurate, because her horse lived on the veranda. And she had a monkey, too, called Mr. Nilsson. But naturally, anyone visiting the town wouldn t know anything about that. If the little girl walked to the front gate -and it was very probable she would, because she liked chatting with people -he d have the chance of getting a proper look at her. And no doubt he couldn t help thinking:

That is the freckliest, most red--haired child I have ever seen.

And then he might think:

Actually, it s really nice to be freckly and red--haired. At least if you look as if you re bursting with life the way this child does.

Astrid Lindgren, die bekannteste Kinderbuchautorin der Welt, wurde 1907 auf Näs im schwedischen Smaland geboren, wo sie im Kreis ihrer Geschwister eine überaus glückliche Kindheit verlebte. Für ihre mehr als siebzig Bilder-, Kinder- und Jugendbücher, die in über siebzig Sprachen übesetzt worden sind, wurde sie u.a. mit folgenden Preisen ausgezeichnet: Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels - Alternativer Nobelpreis - Internationaler Jugendbuchpreis - Hans-Christian-Andersen-Medaille - Große Goldmedaille der Schwedischen Akademie - Schwedischer Staatspreis für Literatur - Deutscher Jugenditeraturpreis - Prämie.