Childhood Reads - Part I

Last Saturday I found myself in my mother’s basement helping her tidying up the mess that had accumulated in the past few years. While we were deciding what to keep and what to chuck away, I came across six large cardboard boxes filled with all my children’s books. I opened a few of them to have a look at what my mum was guarding like a lioness from being discarded. We have an understanding that all these books are to be kept for a possible next generation, because I always wanted to pass on the love for books that I had had as a child and still feel strongly in every fibre of my body.

Why do children read? Even though the media tries to make us believe that children these days have been completely usurped by television and the internet, when I was a kid, there was nothing I loved more than a good book. From the time when I would read the books out loud to myself, following the text line by line with the tip of my finger, I would get sucked into the world that was hidden between these pages. I could get lost in the stories of remote countries, fantastic worlds and lives that were so completely different from my own. I could never name the one book that influenced my childhood the most, since there were just too many marvelous pieces of fiction that I loved and read over and over again. However, I’m trying to regain a piece of my own childhood by recapitulating which of my favourite books I could still read today.

Like every other child I was a huge fan of anything by Astrid Lindgren but not, like most kids, obsessed with “Pippi Longstocking”. If I had to name my all-time-favourite by Lindgren, it would be “The Brothers Lionheart”. 
The books deals with the two brothers Jonathan and Karl, called “Krümel” (crumb), who are as different as two brothers can be. While Jonathan is strong, valiant and good, his little brother Krümel is chronically ill and spends most of his time in bed. He knows that he is going to die soon, so his brother Jonathan tells him the story of a magical land of adventure, campfire and storytelling days called Nangijala, a place you go to after your death.

When a fire breaks out in the house of the family, Jonathan takes Krümel onto his back and jumps out of the window to save him. Jonathan dies in the attempt, Krümel however survives the accident but dies soon after from his unnamed illness (hinted to be tuberculosis). All these events would make the story a tragedy and probably not suitable for children. But as we know Lindgren, this is not the end. Krümel does indeed wake up in Nangijala and is luckily reunited with Jonathan in the fairytale-esque Cherry Valley where Krümel is no longer sick but can roam freely with Jonathan and experience adventures.

However, there are problems in Nangijala and together with a resistance group, Jonathan and Krümel fight against the evil dictator Tengil and his ferocious dragon Katla who are terrorizing the Thorn Rose Valley. They free resistance leader Orvar from Katla’s cave and help the people of the valley dispossess Tengil. Sadly, Jonathan gets hurt by Katla’s fire which will cause him to become paralyzed and die slowly. Jonathan tells Krümel about the land that awaits them beyond: Nangilima. This time it is Krümel’s turn to pick up Jonathan on his back and jump, this time into the abyss of the mountains between the two valleys. The last words of Krümel, who believes every word of his brother’s story, are: "Oh, Nangilima! Yes, Jonatan, yes - I see the light! I see the light!"

The topics that Lindgren touches in her book are difficult to convey in a manner that children can grasp and process: Disease, death, tyranny, betrayal and rebellion. Especially death is a topic that is dark and scary for most children, however, it is not in “The Brothers Lionheart”. Of course, as a child, I cried my eyes out each time Jonathan and Krümel jumped, but I knew that they would be together once they reached the other side, even though I was never quite sure that the second land, Nangilima, actually existed. Even though the book deals with a sad story and has no definite and clear happy ending, I must have read it around twenty times. The ideals presented like loyalty, love, hope, courage and pacifism seem to have spoken to me. I loved they way none of the brothers would ever leave the other, how they fought for their friends and freed everyone in the end. I loved the thrill of the danger that approached when Tengil blew his horn to command his dragon Katla or when he pointed his finger at someone who was then instantly moribund. I loved Jonathan who says he would never kill, not even to defend himself. If I ever have children, this will certainly be one of the books that they will read.

A very moving fact that wikipedia revealed to me: “Vi ses i Nangijala” (“See you in Nangijala”) is sometimes used in Swedish obituaries.

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