It may be childish for me to say that a seven year-old is my role model, but then again, if you were to meet this seven year-old, you’d most likely think otherwise. My mother introduced me to her, and she’s been a part of my life ever since. If you were to meet her, she would most likely salute you, rather than shake your hand. It’s not because she has poor manners, but it’s actually because that’s all she knew growing up on a ship where her father was the captain. My dad is also the captain of his own ship, but I wasn’t speaking in metaphors or referring to any old ship. She was raised on a pirate’s ship, where her and her father acquired thousands of gold pieces throughout their adventures.
She has two close friends, who are her neighbors in the house she lives in all alone because her father was lost at sea and was made king of a cannibal island somewhere in the Pacific. She doesn’t like going to school, because she is confused as to why teachers always ask students questions when they already know the answer, and doesn’t believe “pluttifikation” (how she refers to multiplication) is an important skill for a pirate. If you were to meet her, this is what she would look like, and what she looked like when I met her: “Her hair, the color of a carrot, was braided in two tight braids that stuck straight out. Her nose was the shape of a very small potato and was dotted all over with freckles. It must be admitted that the mouth under this nose was a very wide one, with strong white teeth. Her dress was rather unusual…she herself had made it. She had meant it to be blue, but there wasn’t quite enough blue cloth, so [she] had sewed little red pieces on it here and there. On her long thin legs she wore a pair of long stockings, one brown and the other black; and she had on a pair of black shoes that were exactly twice as long as her feet. These shoes her father had bought for her in South America so that [she] should have something to grow into, and she never wanted to wear any others” (Lindgren 5). Unusual, yes, but then again, that’s who she is and what makes her so loveable.
I’m writing a blog to introduce you to my role model, Pippi Lonstocking. I want to tell you the stories about how she’s dealt with growing up, and all the fun, sad, difficult, and sometimes crazy adventures she’s had. Astrid Lindgren wrote about her adventures fighting bullies, playing tag with some policemen, going to school, sitting on a gate and climbing a tree, arranging a picnic, going to the circus, entertaining two burglars, going to a coffee party, saving a life, and celebrating her birthday. We learned that no matter what difficulty presented itself, Pippi would always say, “I’ll always come out on top” (3). We learned from her adventure at the circus where she carried Adolf, the strongest man in the world, that she is the strongest girl in the world and could pick up her horse with just one hand. We learned that there isn’t anything Pippi is afraid of, and that whatever you thought you couldn’t do or weren’t strong enough to do, Pippi could and Pippi would. Pippi never minds cleaning up around the house, as long as she gets to scrub the floor with the brush skates that she fashioned for herself, which allow her to skate around the kitchen. There is never a time where Pippi lets anyone or anything defeat her, and she would definitely never let any harm come to her closest friends, Tommy and Annika. As one of the sailors aboard her father’s ship said, Pippi is a “remarkable child” (3). She makes herself breakfast in the morning, cleans and repairs her house Villa Villekulla during the day, and counts her many gold coins and dances the schottische at night. All in all, Pippi is a very self-resilient, generous, kind, funny, and free-spirited girl.
A drawing I made as a child. It’s not quite life-sized, but maybe me-sized. It was big paper!
She’s taught me to be independent and not let life’s little things get me down. She reminds me to be adventurous and always open to try new things. The story about when someone offered her a salve to cure freckles and asked her if she “suffers from freckles” and she responds that she “doesn’t suffer from them” but in fact, “loves them,” reminds me to accept myself. Her insistence to not attend school, or go to live in a proper children’s home when asked by two kind police officers, has taught me to always challenge conventions. When she gave Tommy and Annika birthday presents on her own birthday, this taught me to always care for my friends the way she does for hers. When she defeated the supposed “strongest man in the world” and told someone to keep in mind that she was the “strongest girl in the world,” she reminded me the strength and power of being a woman. Whether it’s riding her horse through the school gates or dancing with burglars, she taught me the importance of enjoying life, not sweating the small stuff, and to not take myself too seriously. All in all, Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim’s Daughter Longstocking, or Pippi for short, is a very remarkable child, that I’m very excited for you to meet, and get to know better.
I plan on reviewing the original book written by Astrid Lindgren in 1945, the animated Pippi Lonstocking movie directed in 1997 by Michael Schaack and Clive A. Smith, and the comic series titled Pippi Moves In written by Astrid Lindgren and Ingrid Vang Nyman. From these three pieces, we will learn about the original stories and adventures of Pippi Longstocking, with her friends. No one that I have found has written original stories of Pippi Lonstocking, but I will be referring to multiple reviews of the book, movie, and comic for inspiration. In the blog posts that follow, I plan on continuing the story of Pippi, and telling original, never-before told stories about her growing up. From the perspective of the adult world, she symbolizes the emancipation of women, coming from generation of women who had finally gained emancipation in Sweden. Her story reminds us to never lose our spunk, because as Lindgren herself says, “children know much better than grown-ups what is real.”