Pippi in the South Seas [Hardcover]

Astrid Lindgren (Author), Louis S. Glanzman (Illustrator)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: The Viking Press (1987)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000GV024W
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,028,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In the South Seas with Pippi, May 11, 2009

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Pippi in the South Seas (Paperback)

Pippi in the South Seas is a book with excitement and adventures popping up in every chapter. Pippi is a girl with amazing strength, but not manners. Her friends Tommy and Annika, live next door to Pippi's house, Villa Villekula, where she lives alone. Her father is a king of a remote island, and her mother is dead. Pippi does not go to school; she doesn't even have a job! Pippi lives off of her piles of gold around her house. The main adventure in this book comes with a letter. The letter is from Pippi's father asking her to come to his island. Ofcourse, she says yes. Tommy and Annika are distraught at the thought of Pippi leaving for so long, maybe even forever! Pippi gets permission from their parents to let them go. Tommy and Annika are so happy they get to go to the island with Pippi. When they get to the island they have tremendous amounts of fun, but also they have to fight burglars and sharks. Tommy, Pippi, and Annika are having lots of fun, but they are missing their home. Will Pippi and her friends ever return, or will they stay on the island forever? Read the book and use the Paces study guide to understand it. When I read this book I found this guide very helpful with its vocabulary, discussion, homework, and journals. The journals make you think about the events and understand them better. All in all, I think that this and the study guide is a very smart choice for a gift or just for yourself. Be prepared for adventures when you read Pippi in the South Seas.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful book for anyone young at heart!, December 6, 2002

By 

leosam116 "leosam116" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pippi in the South Seas (Hardcover)

This was one of my favorite books growing up, and I just reread it before sending a copy to a friend's daughter for Christmas. Pippi's irrepressible spirit and good-hearted hijinks will delight readers young and old, and remind you that you're only as old as you feel -- so feel young, arrange a question-and-answer bee and sail off to Kurrekurredutt Island in the South Seas with Pippi Longstocking! (The inhabitants of Kurrekurredutt Island are referred to as "Kurrekurredutts" in the original 1959 edition of the book, not as "cannibals" as one reviewer mentioned. And the only reference to skin color describes how Pippi and her friends tan in the South Seas sun, making no differences at all between them and their Kurrekurredutt playmates.) A delightful book to read again and again!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pippi deals with adults by speaking double-talk and changing the subject, the fantasy of children everywhere, July 25, 2006

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Pippi Longstocking / Pippi Goes on Board / Pippi in the South Seas (Paperback)

Pippi Longstocking is one of the most delightful characters to ever appear in children's books. She is a small girl with pigtails who is the only human living in her house. Her father is the king of the Pacific island of Kurrekurredutt and she lives with her animals. She has pigtails, freckles and is incredibly strong. Tommy and Annika are her friends whose parents let her play with Pippi all the time.

Some people may consider the Pippi books to be inappropriate for children, since Pippi does not go to school and lives a carefree life of perpetual childhood. I don't agree with this opinion, the book is fantasy and Pippi is so full of non sequiters when she speaks that the book is clearly not to be taken seriously.

In this story, Pippi's father arrives to take Pippi to visit his kingdom of Kurrekurredutt. Tommy and Annika go with her and they have many great adventures. Pearls are plentiful in the waters around the island and the children have no trouble finding enough to play games of marbles. Two evil men land on the island and try to steal the pearls away. Pippi simply throws the men out onto the rocks and then into the sea, where they swim to their boat and are never heard from again.

The book is loaded with metaphors for the relationship between children and adults. Pippi simply deals with each situation with an adult by performing double-talk or changing the subject. This naturally annoys the adults, but is a natural turnaround for children. The reasons adults give to children when explaining what is happening often appears as double-talk, so this is just a reversal of roles.

I enjoyed this book immensely, reading it as a fantasy where a child remains a child, and talks strangely to adults. To children, that is often what adults seem to be doing to them.