You may be able to tell from these pictures that Clementine had the absolute best morning of her life at this children's museum in Stockholm, called the Junibacken. I believe it was the idea of Astrid Lindgren, the author of Pippi Longstocking, but it seems to feature many famous Swedish children's book authors, most of whom I was quite unfamiliar with. The museum consists of a huge, darling play area that is sort of like a miniature town, just about the right size for a toddler, though all our children loved it, even the older ones, who took Clemmie and Truman around to show them all the things to play on. Each little section of the town featured a different children's author or illustrator, with buildings and sculptures presumably featured in that author's book. I've never seen Clementine so excited. She has recently entered that darling stage where she longs to copy what she sees all the older people around her doing, such as brush her hair, try on shoes, hold a phone up to her ear, brush her teeth. So when she set her eyes on the little town that was built for someone just her size, she squealed in delight and ran through the room as fast as her chubby little legs could carry her, which actually isn't very fast, and there were many falls as she went. I'm sure you can see by the expressions on her face what a fabulous time she was having. After riding in the train and being pushed around Stockholm in the stroller, she was more than ready to get out and explore, and this place couldn't have been better.
After playing in the little village for quite some time, we visited the next sections, which was a children's ride through scenes from several of Astrid Lindgren's books, though none of them were from Pippi Longstocking. I was familiar with several of the stories, like scenes from an Emil book and Ronia, the Robbers Daughter, and the final section told the story of The Brother's Lionhearted, a book I hadn't heard of, but one that we bought at the gift shop when we were finished at the museum. The English version, naturally. The ride was actually rather impressive, and kept Truman and Clementine in rapt attention. The older kids all enjoyed it too. When we got off the ride we came to another room, this time a house that was supposed to be Villeville Kula, The house Pippi lives in. Every little detail was thought of, including showing the scene where Pippi makes gingerbread cookies on her kitchen floor. It was just like the wacky house described in the book, and was so much fun to walk through, and then watch the kids play in. As before, Clementine was in her element, being fully aware that the house was just fro little kids. She loved it and shrieked and squealed as she explored it.
There was one final room in the museum that was decorated with characters from Moomin, which is a book? TV show? something else? that I'm not very familiar with but seems to be quite popular in Denmark and Sweden, and maybe other countries as well. Anyway, we didn't need to know who the characters were to have fun in this area, and the kids all played some more, until we ended our visit in the gift shop and bought several books and some Pippi memorabilia. Can't wait to go home and drink coffee out of my Pippi mug! Or was I supposed to gift that to someone? Friends and family reading this, act surprised if you end up being the recipient of a Pippi Longstocking mug, okay?
