![]() ![]() Everywhere I travel I ask about folklore. “There are all kinds of trolls – mountain trolls, underground trolls who turn into rock if the sun shines on them. My apologies to all traditionalists,” she says with amusement. “I’d say I was informed by the palette of the country but I don’t like to use fancy words.”īrett admits she went against tradition by making Rollo an appealing troll instead of the ugly, gruff, cruel creatures that come from Norse mythology. “Those flat rocks looked so old, like they have a purpose, almost like a weird troll mat,” she says. ![]() Sweden’s lichen and rocks inspired the gentle gray/green color Brett used for scrollwork circling the book’s pages. She also spent time studying the museum’s beautiful fabrics and costumes she “modified” for the trolls in her illustrations. The museum is home to some of Sweden’s indigenous wild animals she put in the book, including lynx, brown bears, otter and a grey owl. I couldn’t have put a mother moose, father moose and calf in the story if I hadn’t gone to Sweden.”īrett got ideas for how to draw Rollo’s house when she visited Skansen, an open-air museum in Stockholm where she saw a little food-storage hut on legs that looked like a place where trolls would live. I had thought moose were solitary animals. “When I saw the intelligent eyes and kissed the velvety noses of these moose at Kiruna I knew it had to be a moose antler. “I knew Rollo would be transported down the mountain to his home on either a reindeer or a moose antler toboggan,” Brett recalls. That gave her the idea for how Rollo would return to his family just in time for Christmas. In the town of Kiruna, gateway to Sweden’s Arctic north, Brett fell in love with a tame moose family living on a farm. “It was totally barren and I got the feel for where a troll could live.” “We took a helicopter and landed in valleys and mountains where we didn’t see another person,” she recalls. Her list of awards takes up almost three pages.Ĭhildren and adults love the rich colors and winsome animals in Brett’s books, as well as her trademark border illustrations that complement the main story.īrett and her husband, Joseph Hearne, who plays double bass with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, will travel to Minnesota this week in their big bus to introduce “Home for Christmas” and a new edition of Brett’s 1998 interpretation of Clement Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas.” That book includes a DVD of music by the Boston Pops with narration by multiple Grammy and Audie award-winner Jim Dale.īrett says she needed to travel to Sweden while she was working on “Home for Christmas” so she could put Rollo Troll into the right environment. Her website ( ) is visited by some 200,000 visitors per month and her newsletter featuring projects and games is mailed to more than 40,000 fans. With 37 million copies of her books in print, Brett is one of this country’s most popular and approachable author/illustrators. Norway inspired Brett’s book “Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve?” as well as her first New York Times bestseller, “The Wild Christmas Reindeer.” A trip to Denmark led to “The Hat,” and Scandinavian motifs decorate “Trouble with Trolls” and “Christmas Trolls.” ![]()
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