The enormous appeal of Astrid Lindgren’s stories is at least partly due to her understanding of the way children’s minds work. In this story, Peter, a young boy, shrinks in an imperceptible flash to a size in which his mother’s doll’s house becomes a pleasant home, and her old doll a fearless girl companion who defies a band of robbers lurking in the dark forest just outside the doll house window. Penny beads become pearl necklaces and the robbers are quickly foiled in their attempt to steal them, by Peters courage and the comic clever deception of Mimmi, his mother’s childhood doll The enormous appeal of Astrid Lindgren’s stories is at least partly due to her understanding of the way children’s minds work. In this story, Peter, a young boy, shrinks in an imperceptible flash to a size in which his mother’s doll’s house becomes a pleasant home, and her old doll a fearless girl companion who defies a band of robbers lurking in the dark forest just outside the doll house window. Penny beads become pearl necklaces and the robbers are quickly foiled in their attempt to steal them, by Peters courage and the comic clever deception of Mimmi, his mother’s childhood doll