Rating: 5 stars
CBR16 Sweet Books: Cozy (this was my absolutely most favourite book as a child)
Nowhere Books Bingo: Has been adapted into a movie or a TV show
CBR16 Bingo: Horses (the back cover has a picture of the horses that Ronja and Birk tame during their stay in the forest)
Ronja is the only daughter of the chief of a robber band. She's born during a particularly stormy night when a lightning strike creates a giant gorge in the stone fortress where she grows up. Beloved by her father and his robber band, Ronja is kept sheltered through the early years of her life and then is allowed to venture out into the woods surrounding the fortress. She gradually learns not to be afraid of anything and grows strong and independent, thriving in the woods.
For much of her childhood, Ronja is a lonely but content child. When she meets Birk, the son of her father's arch-enemy, the chief of a rival robber band, they are initially hostile towards one another because of their fathers' animosity, but soon become close as siblings. When the rivalry between their fathers worsens, the children decide to remove themselves from the situation entirely. They move into a cave in the forest, using the tricks and skills they have acquired to fend for themselves, waiting for their parents to come to their senses and end the bloodshed between the two robber bands.
My older brother (9 years older than me) taught me to read when I started showing an interest in the alphabet. I was about three years old. I was a voracious reader even before I started school, and according to my late mother, this was the first proper chapter book I finished reading to myself. The film adaptation that was made of this book from 1984 is also the first film I ever saw in the cinema. My mother took me while I was still 4 years old (I remember clearly because the age limit was actually 5, and I was shocked that my mother lied at the ticket counter and said I had already turned five. I think it was my first realisation that grown-ups didn't always tell the truth).
Both this book and the movie adaptation are beloved children's classics for Swedish and Norwegian kids who grew up in the 1980s and 90s. The book has also been adapted into a stage play, a musical, a Studio Ghibli animated series, and now most recently into a new Swedish series that debuted on Netflix earlier this year. I love this book and re-read it to see whether it was age-appropriate for my six-year-old. Since the story is rather slow, but there are also some serious themes explored, I have concluded that we should probably wait a year or two before I introduce him to it, but it's a wonderful story, and should absolutely still be recommended to middle-grade readers.
Judging a book by its cover: The cover art of the book and the inside illustrations in this book were done by Ilon Wikland, an Estonian woman who moved to Sweden as a teenager. She illustrated a lot of Astrid Lindgren's most popular books and having grown up with these illustrations, for me, the stories aren't complete without them.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read
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