Barbro is the other Lindgren in Swedish literature for children. Less known abroad, she’s very much a household name here. Everybody has read or seen an adaptation of her books about Loranga, Masarin and Dartanjang – a wild anarchistic romp that makes Pippi Longstocking seem stuck up. For Barbro Lindgren is a wilder, more chaotic, playful writer, and her books have a unpredictable danger about them. You’re never quite sure about her characters, you never quite trust them. But you’re likely to love hanging with them.

The three books about the Land of Barnhans, inhabited by decaying stuffed animals and other toys, some pinecones, a cork and an annoying marble, are I think Barbro’s last books for children. They were written in the mid-eighties, well after I was the target group. So this is my first encounter with this existential world of mayhem.

It’s really all episodes. It deals with Röden and Farbrornallen creating of a club to discuss the meaning of life, of Mack the rubber monkey's speed devil club, about a day when everybody got lost, about the urge to bury things and/or friends, about an epic fail in staging the play Nök-Hamlet and about the one-line poetry of an über-sentimental Russian rat. And at the same time, it’s a irreverent but gentle meditation of death and existence. Think Winne the Pooh meets Krazy Kat and you might get an idea. Good stuff! ( )