Pylimitics

Literature for young people wouldn’t be the same without November 14. Well, I mean, obviously any book that mentioned the month would, in that case, have to explain why the calendar goes from 13 directly to 15, but that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about Jacob Abbott and Astrid Lindgren who were born on Novembers 14. Or November 14s. Anyway, they share a birthday today.

Jacob Abbot was born first, in 1803 in Massachusetts in the US. He grew up to become a teacher and school principal, as well as one of the founders of the Mount Vernon School for Boys in New York City. He taught at the high school and college levels, and at Amherst College was a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, back when “natural philosophy” was the term for science. And in his spare time, he wrote. That is, he wrote — he authored 180 books and co-wrote 31 others. 

Many of his books were written for young readers, and his style might not be to the taste of modern children. Here’s a sample, from the preface of his book Bruno:

“The books, though called story books, are not intended to be works of amusement merely to those who may receive them, but of substantial instruction. The successive volumes will comprise a great variety, both in respect to the subjects which they treat, and to the form and manner in which the subjects will be presented; but the end and aim of all will be to impart useful knowledge, to develop the thinking and reasoning powers, to teach a correct and discriminating use of language, to present models of good conduct for imitation, and bad examples to be shunned, to explain and enforce the highest principles of moral duty, and, above all, to awaken and cherish the spirit of humble and unobtrusive, but heartfelt piety.”

Um, right. He wrote a number of book series, including the Lucy books, the Jonas books, Harper’s Story Books, Juno Books, Uncle George books, and his best known series, Rollo Books. He lived for a long time in Farmington, Maine, where his house (which he named Fewacres) still stands (I think), although it’s not an official historic site. 

Astrid Lindgren was born in 1907 in Vimmerby, Sweden. She was not as prolific as Abbot, and “only” wrote about 35 books for children. However, by 2010 her books had sold over 160 million copies worldwide, and in 2017 someone with time on their hands figured out that she was the 18th most translated author in the world. You may be thinking that with all those book sales, why haven’t you heard of Astrid Lindgren — but I bet you’ve heard of Pippi Longstocking.

Lindgren worked for her home town newspaper after finishing high school, and caused a local scandal when she and her chief editor had a child together. To escape the gossip she moved to Stockholm and worked as a secretary. Once again she got involved with her boss, but this time they married. She began writing professionally as a result of winning a competition held by a publisher — in 1944 she won second prize, and the next year she took the top prize with her first Pippi Longstocking book. She visited the US and wrote Kati in America about her adventures, although it’s not entirely clear whether she really embodied the irreverent attitude many of her characters (especially Pippi) evince. I mean, they didn’t arrest her or anything…

Lindgren influenced Swedish society at least three times. In 1976 she made so much money that her income tax according to the formula at the time was 102%. She wrote a satire about it, and the whole affair raised such a controversy that it contributed to the Social Democratic party was voted out of office after 44 years. Lindgren, though, remained a Social Democrat. In 1979 she campaigned against corporal punishment of children, resulting in the world’s first law against it. And in the 1980s her advocacy of animal welfare led to another new law protecting animals. 

The Swedish government awards the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Lindgren’s honor every year; it’s a monetary prize for children’s literature. It’s a pretty good prize, amounting to about half a million US dollars. And there’s an asteroid, 3204 Lindgren, named for her. And when Sweden launched the satellite Astrid 1 in 1995, its instruments were named PIPPI, EMIL, and MIO after Lindgren characters (they created backronyms but really had to stretch to do it; PIPPI “stands for” Prelude In Planetary Particle Imaging). Pippi Longstocking would have a good laugh about that.