Tove Jansson Niisku, was thin and ugly, with a long, narrow nose and devilish tail. Jansson said that she had designed the Moomins in her youth: after she lost a philosophical quarrel about Immanuel Kant with one of her brothers, she drew "the ugliest creature imaginable" on the wall of their outhouse and wrote under it "Kant". This Moomin later gained weight and a more pleasant appearance, but in the first Moomin book "The Moomins and the Great Flood" (originally "Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen"), the Immanuel-Kant-Moomin is still perceptible. The name "Moomin" comes from Tove Jansson's uncle, Einar Hammarsten: when she
Sophia Jansson "Jaana" in 1965. In May 2003, The Finnish Embassy in London arranged for events to surround the recent translation of Tove Jansson's 1972 "Sommarboken", a novel which featured the fictionalized life of the young Sophia on an island. During this event, publishers presented works by Sophia Jansson and Johanna Sinisalo. Jansson was later interviewed in June 2003 by "The Daily Telegraph" where she explained the details surrounding the story presented in "Sommarboken" and the relationship shared between Jansson and her aunt, Tove Jansson. She would write in more detail about this topic in 2006 in the Scandinavian Review, and again