Emil of Lönneberga, Emil's Pranks, and Emil Gets into Mischief

In the Swedish countryside, on the farm of Katthult, lives a freckled boy with blue eyes named Emil, who keeps landing in all sorts of trouble. He’s remarkably independent and restless. There’s so much interesting in the world! And he really wants to try everything.

So young Emil Svensson goes on adventures—either putting a soup tureen on his head, or deciding to show his little sister around the area, or heading off to soldiers’ drills. Who else would think of putting a frog into a basket with food? Or pretending to be a poor orphan to earn a little money? Or setting a feather on a farmer’s hat on fire? One day he smears the mayor’s face with cake; another time he ends up in blackberry jelly; and then, together with a rooster and a piglet, he overeats on drunk cherries—and all this with the very best intentions. His antics make the whole farm tremble.

One day, he frightens the poor fellow villagers so badly that they decide to get rid of the rascal and send him to America. They, being naïve, thought it would immediately become calmer for them. They tied up some money and brought it to his mother… And what happened next, you’ll find out by listening to these books.