Happy Times in Noisy Village

Mini was born in the front seat of a mini-car in an icy car-park in South Wales. She has two sisters and one brother, and grew up in a village in Buckinghamshire with plenty of places to make camps, climb trees and pretend to be horses. As a child Mini believed no day should pass without making something and created many bizarre objects from cardboard, clay, papier mache, dough, plaster, toilet rolls and crisp packets.

After school Mini did a foundation Course in Art, but knew she wasn’t cut out to be a Fine Artist, so did an English degree at University College London. While she was there she became involved with set-building at the Bloomsbury theatre and eventually got…

Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002) was born in Sweden. Her most famous and beloved book, Pippi Longstocking, was originally published in Swedish in 1945 and has since been translated into 80 languages. It was followed by two sequels, Pippi Goes on Board and Pippi in the South Seas.
The success of Pippi Longstocking led to a rapid growth of the publishing house Rabén & Sjögren, where Astrid Lindgren took over responsibility for children's book publishing and thus had dual roles: she was a writer in the mornings and an editor in the afternoons.

Astrid Lindgren had a long and prolific career, writing songs, screenplays, 34 chapter books, and 41 picture books. Her works have sold a staggering 170 million copies worldwide and…