I just took a Picture Book Break from library work to re-read a childhood favorite picture book, Snipp, Snapp, Snurr and the Buttered Bread by Maj LIndman. I loved this series of picture books featuring the Swedish triplets, Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr when I was a kid of a girl. I loved the idea of triplets (and twins). It was intriguing to me that you could have three brothers (or sisters, Flicka, Rick and Dicka) who looked alike and were born at the same time. I think also the foreignness of these little boys growing up in a village in Sweden appealed to me.

In this particular Snipp Snapp Snurr adventure not too much happens. The boys long for some butter to spread on their mother’s fresh bread. So Mother sends them out to get some milk from Aunt Annie’s cow. But the cow, Blossom, has had no fresh grass to eat, so she can’t give milk. And there is no fresh grass to give Blossom because . . . So the story goes from one obstacle to another until the boys finally manage to overcome and get some butter for their bread. It’s just a lovely little sequential story showing how one thing depends upon another all in a great chain that finally yields food, feasting and enjoyment.

Lindman’s illustrations are delightful, too. Of course the triplets wear matching clothes, red overalls and a blue shirt, and they look just alike. The reader never knows in this book which one is Snipp or Snapp or Snurr. Lindman writes, “The sun looked down at the boys and shone and gleamed and beamed with happiness.” And the sun in the picture has a giant smile on his sunny face. Mother and Aunt Annie wear suitable but colorful farm woman dresses and aprons. Everything in the story and the pictures is just so charming and picturesque that it enhances my present enjoyment and my feeling of nostalgia.

Alice Dalgliesh writes in her foreword to Snipp, Snapp, Snurr and the Buttered Bread: “This is the fourth book in the series telling of the adventures of Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr. By this time these three little Swedish boys have become firmly entrenched in the affections of American children. . . . The story has the same quaint charm as the preceding ones. It has an air of reality but it takes just a step over the border of fancy. The books are entirely independent of each other. They may be read in any order, and children who first meet Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr at the farm can then go back and read any of the other adventures.”

Indeed. I am tempted to do as Dalgliesh suggests and go back and read all of the Snipp, Snapp, Snurr books as well as their companion series, Flicka, Rick, and Dicka. But my Picture Book Break time is over, so I’ll save the rest for another day.