Happy Birthday, Pippi

The beloved heroine of children's literature is 70 years young. 

  • Inger Nilsson (1959- ) is a Swedish actress mostly known for her portrayal of Pippi Longstocking.
  • You wouldn’t believe it by looking at her, but our favorite redheaded Swede, Pippi Långstrump, celebrates her 70th birthday on Nov. 15, the anniversary of her debut in Astrid Lindgren’s book "Pippi Långstrump" (literally "Long stocking"). The spunky girl with superhuman strength (whose full name is Pippilotta Viktualia Rullgardina Krusmynta Efraimsdotter Långstrump) is one of Lindgren’s most beloved characters, known around the word in 70 languages with adaptations in several films and television series. It was Lindgren’s daughter Karin who named her, after she asked her mother to tell her a story one day when she was home sick from school. After others initially rejected her stories in 1944, Lindgren’s manuscripts were accepted and published by Rabén and Sjögren — the first three were chapter books, published in 1945–1948, with an additional series of six books published in 1969–1975. Two final stories were printed in 1979 and 2000, just two years before Lindgren died at the age of 94.

  • Pippi illustration by Ingrid Vang Nyman. Courtesy of Saltkråkan AB.
  • Another Lindgren museum
    Pippi's birthday falls just one day after her creator's birthday; Astrid Lindgren was born on November 14, in 1907. Her life is well documented in films and biographies — and around Sweden. In her hometown of Vimmerby, her childhood home and Astrid Lindgren's World has been open for years. And now the home she lived in for some 61 years, will open as a museum on her birthday, November 14.

  • You wouldn't believe it by looking at her, but our favorite redheaded Swede, Pippi Långstrump, celebrated her 70th birthday in 2015.
  • Dalagatan 46 in Stockholm is where Astrid Lindgren moved with her family in 1941, four years before her breakthrough book "Pippi Longstocking" was published. The apartment is still in the family. "She had a loving relationship to his home," says Lindgren's daughter Karin Nyman. It's a humble apartment with a small kitchen, living room, and three bedrooms, one of which became the author's work space after her children were grown.

  • Best tourist experience in Sweden? The Astrid Lindgrens Värld in Vimmerby. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
  • "This is not a super star's environment," says Nyman. "She was an ordinary person, and I think this is thoughtful. In this way, she is a good role model. And there is a right shortage of good role models."

  • Astrid Lindgren in her home, around 1960, courtesy of Wikimedia/Commons. Her Stockholm apartment is opening as a museum on what would have been her 108th birthday, Nov. 14, 2015.
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