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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 February 2019
When I was a child, my favorite book was Wonderful Journey by Selma Lagerlof in Hungarian translation. The story is about a boy who is turned into a Tom Thumb for bad behavior. He joins a flock of wild geese and travels with them on the back of a goose on a series of adventures through towns and forests, even under the sea to an “Atlantis.” He speaks the language of the animals and learns good behavior. As a reward, after a year, he is transformed back into a regular boy and goes home. He looks up wonderingly at the flock of geese going on another adventure but can no longer understand the language of animals. He is sad. At this point, I always cried. (I did not know that the story, written in 1907, took place in Sweden and was a geography lesson of Sweden, specifically. It is available now in English as the Wonderful Adventures of Nils. Selma Lagerlof received the Nobel Prize.)