January 28th 2002 one of Sweden’s most famous authors, Astrid Lindgren died. She was, and still is very famous because of her books. Children all over the world read her stories, which are translated to over 80 different languages.

Her childhood

Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren was born in 1907 in the south part of Sweden. She was the second child of four. Her childhood was safe and loving and she was always surrounded by adults. She started school when she was seven years old in a village called Vimmerby. She was happy in her school and got good marks. Her favourite subject was Swedish. When Astrid Lindgren was nineteen years old she moved to the capital of Sweden to learn stenography and typewriting.

The same year she had her first child, a boy named Lars. She placed him in a foster-home in Denmark so she could keep on studying. One year later she went to Denmark to take her son home because of sickness in the foster-home. In 1931 Astrid Lindgren got married to a man called Sture Lindgren. When she was twenty-four years old, three years after the marriage she had her second child. Astrid Lindgren became a housewife so she could take care of her children. A few years later she started working as a editor on Rabén & Sjögren which was a very good thing for her career.

Why did Astrid Lindgren get so famous and popular?

Astrid Lindgren wrote her stories for the children, and did it in a kind of way so they can understand and recognise themselves. Even the adults who read her books get fascinated by her lively imagination and are caught up by the reading. Astrid Lindgren had an ability to enter into her stories when she wrote them, that makes every one of them unique. Her stories are funny, exciting, sad and a bit clever. It is hard for us "usual" human beings to understand how she over and over again could write so popular books. Astrid Lindgren describes the children and the stories common world in an amazing way. When you have read one of her books you will see that she really knew how a child thinks and feels.

Which one of Astrid Lindgren´s books are the most popular?

We have done a research among a day-care and an upper secondary school, about what they think about Astrid Lindgren. The day-care children’s favourite stories are "Pippi Longstocking" and "Emil in the soup tureen".

Is because of the television. Both "Pippi Longstocking" and "Emil in the soup tureen" have been showed on the children’s program regularly. Many other of Astrid Lindgrens books have also been showed on television but not as often. The students at the upper secondary school didn’t have a favourite but the stories they mentioned are "Springtime in noisy village", "Emil in the souptureen" and "Seacrow Island". A quite funny difference between children and adults is that the children remember her stories from films and the adults from books. That depends on the big age difference. They didn’t show Astrid Lindgrens stories in such a big extent then as now.

Conclusion

Astrid Lindgren is one of Sweden’s most famous authors. She has over and over again been chosen to Sweden’s most admired person. Astrid Lindgren knew that she was known all over the world but she appreciated to be remembered in connection with rewards like that. Not even our queen Silvia can take that title away from her.

She is number one in all Swedish people’s hearts. Children all over the world read her fairytales, which are translated to over 80 different languages. Astrid Lindgren is also very famous in Germany, they have named 122 schools after her. It’s a shame that an amazing woman like Astrid Lindgren never received The Nobel Prize. But she got a much better price, she won the peoples hearts and admiration with her marvellous books.

Addresses:
·www.AstridLindgren.se
· A book named Duvdrottningen en bok till Astrid Lindgren.
· En egen undersökning bland dagisbarn, gymnasieelever och vuxna.


© 2002 Freeway
Writers: Sussane Olsson (sp04-24@park.se), Åsa Karlsson(sp04-15@park.se)
HTML by: Erik Östman (te04-78@park.se).