The Glassblower's Children by Maria Gripe

Every year Albert goes to the fair to sell his goods, and sometimes Sophia and Klas and Klara get to go along.

While Albert spends time in his studio, making beautiful but impractical bowls and vases that nobody wants to buy, Sophia works in the fields, collecting flax. In The Glassblower’s Children she draws on old traditions of fairy tale and Norse myth to tell an exciting story with a very modern sensibility.Īlbert the glassblower and Sophia are the loving parents of two small children, Klas and Klara.

In 1985 she was awarded the Nordic Children's Book Prize.Maria Gripe’s books are treasures of international children’s literature. Her books have won many awards, and she was the 1979 Swedish winner of the Dobloug Prize for Swedish and Norwegian fiction. Literary researcher Ying Toijer-Nilsson, who wrote a biography Skuggornas förtrogna ('Confidant to shadows') of the author, echoed the remarks, saying that she would miss 'the warm and humorous human being who was Maria Gripe.' The biographer continued: 'She has done a lot for the children's book world, and she got her readers to think about philosophy, about the world and about death.' Toijer-Nilsson pointed out that Gripe's books also have 'a significant tendency to support the social advancement of women.' Stockholm University Literature professor Boel Westin praised Maria Gripe to a writer for Svenska Dagbladet, declaring that her Shadow books presented an exciting narrative that enabled readers to feel as if they were participants: 'She has meant a lot. Gripe received the writing award in 1974. The biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award conferred by the International Board on Books for Young People is the highest recognition available to a writer or illustrator of children's books. Weird as it is the last book of a 4 books series, the shadow series, Skugg-gömman, has never been translated to English or any other language apart from Danish, Norwegian and Finnish. She also wrote the original Swedish television script for Trolltider ('Magic Time', 1979). Kjell Grade directed Hugo and Josephine in 1967, while Kay Pollak filmed Elvis! Elvis ( Elvis and his friends) in 1976 and Flickan vid stenbänken ('The girl on the stone bench') became a television series in 1989.ĭramatized versions of Tordyveln flyger i skymningen ('The dung-beetle flies at dusk'), Agnes Cecilia, Tanten ('The Aunt') and Svinhugg går igen ('The backbiter bitten') have been produced as radio serials. Several of Gripe's books have been filmed, such as Glasblåsarns barn ( The Glassblower's Children), Agnes Cecilia: en sällsam historia ('Agnes Cecilia: a singular history') and the 'Shadow' series, directed by Anders Grönros in the 1990s. Her last published book is Annas blomma ('Anna's Flower', 1997). Gripe wrote 38 books, translated into 30 different languages, making her one of Sweden's most prolific writers.

The Glassblower's Children by Maria Gripe