Nils Holgersson is a lazy, hard-hearted farm boy in the far south of Sweden, happiest when he is tormenting the animals of the farm. One Sunday morning he catches a tomte — one of the little house-elves of Swedish folklore — and refuses to free it, and the elf takes its revenge by shrinking him to its own tiny size. Suddenly no bigger than a thumb, the boy who lorded it over the geese and the cat is now at their mercy. When a white farmyard gander named Morten rises into the air to follow a passing flock of wild geese, Nils clings to his neck and is swept away with him — north across the whole length of the country and back. The wild flock is led by Akka of Kebnekaise, an old grey goose, wise and stern, who has no use for a human boy. To be allowed to stay, Nils must make himself useful and good. Over a long spring and summer he does. He saves the flock again and again from the cunning fox Smirre; he rescues animals and people in trouble; and province by province, creature by creature, he learns the cost of cruelty and the worth of courage and kindness. The boy who could not be trusted to mind a flock of geese becomes the one the wild geese trust with their lives. Written on commission as a geography reader for Sweden's schoolchildren, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils outgrew its assignment to become a classic of world literature. Two years after it appeared, Selma Lagerlöf became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. More than a century on, this tender, adventurous, quietly wise story of transformation remains one of the great books written for children — and for everyone who was ever a child.
