While this is a very famous story, it's not in my view a good children's book, at least by modern standards. It's quite slow and rather boring, spending far more time on Swedish geography, history, flora, fauna, folktales, and life during the 1800s and early 1900s than it on its purported story. If you plan to read this story to kids, find a greatly edited book that contains a lot of illustrations and maps and read them that. The original 2-volume set is better read by adults who can put up with its antique style and its lack of illustrations and maps. So I'd recommend it, but with reservations when it comes to kids. ( )

Nils es un niño que nunca ha sentido amor por nadie. Un día, en castigo por su mal comportamiento, se convierte en un duende. Para romper el hechizo, deberá viajar con una bandada de gansos a través de Suecia.

In 1902 the National Teachers Association of Sweden commissioned Selma Lagerlöf to write a geography book for students. She spent several years studying bird and animal life before writing her internationally famous book about the boy who travels across Sweden with a flock of wild geese.

Nils is a naughty child, and his parents despair over his cruelty, caprice, and laziness. One day, when his parents are at church, Nils captures a tomten (an elf-like creature that looks after the welfare of the farm) and threatens it. As punishment, the tomten turns Nils into one as well. Nils runs outside and discovers he can understand the speech of the birds and animals. When a flock of wild geese fly overhead, a tame gander flies after them, carrying Nils with him.

Thus begins the adventures of Nils as he flies north to Lappland with the geese on their summer migration. His adventures are accompanied by descriptions of the Swedish countryside, often interlaced with legend and tales that make it easy, even for a non-Swede such as myself, to remember. In addition to the topography, Lagerlöf includes information about the habits of animals, the types of plants that grow in each habitat, and information about the types of industry common to each area. The result is a wonderful mix of fact and fiction that reads like adventure but imparts a tremendous amount of information. And Nils returns home a wiser and much nicer little boy.

Originally published as two books, I read them back to back, as the English translation was published as one volume. ( )

Sweden's most beloved adventurer, Nils is a disobedient child shrunken to the height of a gnome. He slowly befriends various native animals and flies around Sweden on a goose. He grows more mature as he copes with death and suffering, learning to help as he can.

You'll learn more about Sweden's plants and animals than you bargained for. Martens are pretty cute though. ( )

RG-8