No self-respecting child of my generation with a shelf full of Puffins (detail, inset) in their bedroom will need reminding about the adventures of Tove Jansson’s Moomin family. Although Finn Family Moomintroll and Comet in Moominland are probably the best-known of the series, it was an inspired idea of the BBC’s drama department to come up with an adaptation of the 1957 title in the series, Moominland Midwinter (BBC Radio 4), to be aired on Christmas Day at 11 a.m. Not only does it suit the season, but it is by the far the strangest and most compelling book in what was an exceptionally strange oeuvre.

For newcomers to the party, the Moomins are a gang of Finnish trolls whose idyllic natural habitat, Moomin Valley, is constantly being menaced by comets, environmental foul-ups and a (literally) icy villain known as the Groke, whose appearance betokens sub-zero temperatures. The family hibernates during the sub-Arctic winter, and it is here that our hero, Moomintroll, suddenly finds himself dragged into consciousness when a stray beam of moonlight falls on his face.