Tove and the Island with No Address – written and illustrated by Lauren Soloy
Tundra Books, 2024

First, if a devoted reader of Tove Jansson were to imagine the ideal author and illustrator of a book about Jansson’s childhood, Lauren Soloy would be a likely choice. (see my earlier reviews here and here and here). Tove and the Island with No Address is not a picture book biography. Rather, it is an evocative portrait of one aspect of Jansson’s life, her childhood summers in a small cottage on a remote island. Soloy does not draw explicit conclusions about creativity and nature, or even attempt to connect all the dots between a child’s imagination and the real world surrounding her.  Readers will infer those connections from the comforting text and distinctive illustrations, which could only be from the pen (and accomplished skill with Procreate software) of Lauren Soloy.

Tove loves the sea, and the assortment of objects washed ashore.  With a kind of Zen wisdom, she understands that “salvage is the fit the sea gives you and can be any number of wonderful things.” The domestic interiors are as much an ingredient in Tove’s vision as the outdoors. If salvage is somewhat unpredictable, her summer residence is a place of stability. Tove inspects her loft bed to ensure that “everything was just as she had left it.” Children instinctively know that change and continuity need to be in balance. Below her bed, Tove’s mother feeds her baby sibling. Maternal nourishment will demonstrate itself later in the book, as well.

Where are the Moomins? They have not been invented yet, but young Tove encounters a secret friend who live in a grotto.  This creature has five children, miniature in size but unruly in nature.  The larger creature cannot control them. Tove expands upon her older sister role, placing them in her coat pocket and taking them for a walk. A storm threatens, but the inventive little girls hide on a tree among the pinecones. Like most parents, Tove tries to influence them through both “coaxing” and “scolding,” but they only accept the compromise of a boat made from bark with teaspoon oars.  Tove is tolerant, and introspective. She admits to herself that the little girls’ rebelliousness actually inspires pride in her caregiver.

Soloy’s wild nature has the force of a painting by J.M.W. Turner.  Bodies and faces are bulky and squared, but with only a few strokes of color she turns limbs, eyes, and mouth into specific expressions of character. When Tove returns from her adventure, cold and wet, her mother embraces her, using her larger sweater to enclose her daughter’s small body.  Naturally, Tove observes that his enclosure is “better than any blanket.”  When the Moomins arrive, in Tove Jansson’s adulthood, parental protectiveness, and sometimes inadequacy, will make them more complex than the small inhabitants of the island. Nevertheless, those girls carried in Tove’s pocket will become part of the Moomintrolls’ world.  An afterword fills in more information about Jansson’s life and career.