Tales from Moominvalley - Tove Jansson, Thomas Warburton
I've got to say, I know genius when I see it, and this is it. Jansson put her quietly strange imagination to work in the service of invoking kindly emotions amazingly effectively. These stories are really touching, and I say that as someone who hates sentimentality -- sentimental they aren't. They combine the pleasures of home and family with an acceptance of nature.

One thing that struck me is that these stories are built around contrasts: inside the home vs. outside in "The Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters", for example; constant tension between the natural and the constructed worlds, between company and solitude, between independence and interdependence, leaving home and returning, the spoken and the inexpressible.