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All the people in Lönneberga felt sorry for the Svenssons in Katthult who had such a rascal for a son. If only they’d known that Emil was going to become Chairman of the Local Council when he grew up! But this book is not about that. It’s about all the mischief – like that time when Emil got his head got stuck in the soup tureen and that unfortunate Sunday when he hoisted little Ida up the flagpole.
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When this story begins, Emil has just carved his ninety-seventh little wooden figure and when it ends he’s already made one hundred and twenty-five of them. So you can work out how many pranks he’s got up to in the meantime. How he’s poured dumpling mixture over his father, for example, and celebrated his hundredth carving jubilee in the wood store and how he shocked them all in Katthult when he put on a Christmas party for everybody at the poorhouse.
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Emil doesn’t mean any harm really – he just happens to eat fermented cherries and gets drunk together with the rooster and the pig. And afterwards, when he’s about to repent and become a Good Templar, he accidentally sets fire to the vicar’s wife with his magnifying glass … but Emil is a nice boy, deep down, and when he is sitting there in the woodshed having carved his one-hundred-and-thirtieth little wooden figure, he prays earnestly: “Dear God, please make me stop doing mischief. Kind regards, Emil Svensson, Katthult, Lönneberga.”
