The Moomin ABC exhibition offers a thrilling introduction to the alphabet and a tour of the magical Moominvalley. Children and adults can get acquainted with the Moomin stories and discuss different emotions such as disappointment, sadness and the desire for adventure.
In Tove Jansson’s stories about Moominvalley and its inhabitants, all emotions are allowed. Little My is often angry, but not always, and she is not the only one. In Moominvalley, there are many things to be happy about and some things that create fear. There is anxiety and disappointment and an enormous desire for adventure and longing that drives them forward.
How do we want to be comforted? What helps when we get angry? Where do we feel good?
The Moomin ABC Exhibition, first seen in the Helsinki Bookhouse in Helsinki, Finland and next in different book fairs in Finland, consists of beautiful and playful Moomin-themed modules children can crawl into and through, as well as a poster exhibition with different letters and stories behind them, combined with a whole adventure filled with thrilling tasks and a set of educational material about emotions.
At first available in Finnish, Swedish and Icelandic, the engaging exhibition invites children to go through different kinds of tasks regarding emotions and letters, described in an instruction book available at the beginning of the exhibition.
Children and adults can get acquainted with characters and stories from the Moominvalley and discuss different emotions such as disappointment, sadness and the desire for adventure.
The Finnish and Swedish versions of the exhibition were created based on the ABC books Mumindalens Alfabet (Swedish) and Onnelliset Aakkoset (Finnish), whereas other language versions are based on the original Moomin stories created by Tove Jansson.
The ABC books, written in Finnish by Paula Nivukoski and in Swedish by Annika Sandelin, aim to help children find the joy of reading and writing. The creative texts play with letters and phonetics and make the learning of the alphabet fun.
The other gorgeous part of the exhibition includes adult-sized modules that invite children to crawl inside and through them: they make the Moomin stories and the play of letters and alphabet come alive.
The modular Moomin exhibition is a space where children and their adults can stay for a while, together with the stories and the characters, to discuss, play and draw – all starting from the emotions found in the stories.
In the exhibition, children can, for example, look into a kaleidoscope to see if they can see what they long for, play with letters and make words or a poem, draw their happy place or test different ways to express anger.
‘The exhibition was open until the 26th of September, 2021, at Akateeminen kirjakauppa, Helsinki Bookhouse (2nd floor), in Helsinki, Finland.
In Finland, you can next experience the exhibition at book fairs in Turku, Helsinki, Tampere and Jyväskylä.
“Language and storytelling are what makes us humans special“
The Moomin ABC Exhibition is a part of the new Moomin initiative “Reading, Writing and the Moomins“. It is a multiannual, international initiative to spread the joy of reading and writing around the world with the help of Moomin stories. The initiative brings together charity organizations and companies all around the world.
Tove Jansson, the creator of the Moomin stories, read non-stop from a very young age. As a child, she would take a flashlight to bed with her to keep reading into the night while the rest of the family slept. Her curiosity meant she could never wait until the following day to get to the end of an exciting story! As she grew up, books were always being exchanged and discussed both in the Jansson family home and within Tove’s circle of friends. So it’s little wonder that Tove became a storyteller, writing and illustrating the Moomin books still loved by millions of readers worldwide today. But it all started with a pen and some paper.
“We at Moomin Characters believe that language and storytelling are what makes us humans special. It is language that distinguishes us from other species. The ability to express fears, dreams, the future and the past, is central to humanity, and without a nuanced language, we lose the connection to our feelings”, Tove Jansson’s niece and Creative Director of Moomin Characters Ltd, Sophia Jansson, comments.
The Moomin ABC exhibition is now open in Iceland
The #MoominABC poster exhibition also travelled to Iceland in September 2021. The exhibition is now open in The Nordic House children’s library in Reykjavik, Iceland, until the 30th of January, 2022, the
If you’re interested in arranging the exhibition, for example, in an event or at another suitable place, please do read more here.
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