The Moomins
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50 free The Moomins trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Moomins look like the gentlest creatures in children's literature, and in many ways they are. But the valley Tove Jansson drew is also a place of sudden dangers, odd visitors and characters who would rather be left alone, which is why the stories keep finding new readers long after childhood. This quiz covers the whole Moomin world. There are questions on the family and the friends who drift in and out of their house, plenty on Snufkin and Little My, and more on the plots of the novels and the small details that fans remember. It also follows the Moomins off the page, into the comic strip, the television cartoons, the films, the games and the places you can visit. It is written for anyone who grew up with the books or the cartoons, and for newer fans who met the characters on a mug or a screen. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play on your own, test a fellow fan, or print the questions for a themed quiz night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which animal do Tove Jansson's Moomins resemble, with round white bodies and large snouts, despite being trolls?
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus is the animal the Moomins are forever mistaken for. Tove Jansson gave them soft, rounded shapes to match the gentle sound of the letter m in their name.
Q 02Which small instrument does the pipe-smoking wanderer Snufkin play in Tove Jansson's Moomin books?
Harmonica
A harmonica is all Snufkin needs for music. In one adventure an insect collector mistakes its sound for a rare caterpillar and reaches in with his net, hauling Snufkin and his friends out of danger.
Q 03Which item is Moominmamma never seen without in the Moomin stories, since it holds dry socks, string and tummy powder?
Her handbag
Her handbag matters so much to Moominmamma that when it goes missing in Finn Family Moomintroll, the family throws a party to celebrate its return.
Q 04What does the restless Moominpappa, forever longing for new adventures, usually wear on his head in the Moomin stories?
A top hat
A top hat is Moominpappa's trademark. When the mood takes him, he climbs to his study on the third floor of the Moominhouse to write his memoirs.
Q 05Which lonely Moomin character freezes the ground wherever she stands while searching for warmth and light?
The Groke
The Groke is feared across Moominvalley, yet all she wants is company. In Moominpappa at Sea she returns night after night simply to gaze at Moomintroll's lamp.
Q 06Which entertainment giant has the Jansson family turned down in order to keep control of the Moomins?
Disney
Disney made offers that the family refused. Artistic control of the Moomins instead passed to Sophia Jansson, the niece of their creator Tove Jansson.
Q 07In which country was the 1990 Moomin cartoon series drawn and animated, despite being a Dutch-led co-production?
Japan
Japan is where the 104-episode series was animated, and its success set off a worldwide 'Moomin boom' of books, mugs and toys in the 1990s.
Q 08Which language, spoken by a minority in Finland, did Tove Jansson use to write the Moomin books?
Swedish
Swedish was the Jansson family's mother tongue. The director of the first Moomin stage play, in 1949, insisted that the trolls speak it the way Helsinki does.
Q 09Which philosopher did the young Tove Jansson mock with an ugly outhouse-wall doodle that later grew into Moomintroll?
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was the target. After losing a family argument about him, the young Jansson drew the ugliest creature she could think of and wrote his name underneath.
Q 10What colour is the wide-brimmed hat that Snufkin has owned since birth in Tove Jansson's Moomin books?
Green
Green is the colour of Snufkin's hat and his well-worn clothes. Jansson borrowed the look from a real man in her life who favoured the same kind of hat.
Q 11Where does the free-spirited Snufkin sleep during his spring and summer stays in Moominvalley?
In a tent
In a tent, which Snufkin pitches wherever he finds a spot he likes. He holds that nobody should own more than they can handle, so he travels with almost nothing.
Q 12Which friend of Moomintroll wears a golden anklet and changes colour according to her mood in the Moomin books?
Snorkmaiden
Snorkmaiden is a quick thinker as well as a romantic: she once rescued Moomintroll from a deep-sea octopus armed with nothing but a hand mirror.
Q 13Which timid friend of Moomintroll, adopted by the Moomin family, dreams of finding riches and owning sparkly things?
Sniff
Q 21Which practical character, modelled on Tove Jansson's life partner, first appears in Moominland Midwinter?
Too-Ticky
Too-Ticky echoes the nickname of the artist Tuulikki Pietilä, who was known as Tooti. In the book she keeps the sleepless Moomintroll company through his first winter awake.
Q 22Which Moomin character is miserable at the start of Finn Family Moomintroll because his stamp collection is complete?
The Hemulen
The Hemulen owns every stamp in the world and has nothing left to hunt for, so he cheers himself up by starting a brand-new collection of plants.
Q 23Which nervous, house-proud Moomin character feels happy and free only after a tornado carries her home away?
The Fillyjonk
Sniff loves anything valuable, though his courage rarely matches his taste for adventure. He also discovers the seaside cave that becomes the friends' hideout.
Q 14What threatens to strike the Earth in the second Moomin book, sending Moomintroll to an observatory for answers?
A comet
A comet draws so close that its heat dries up the sea, and the friends cross the empty seabed on stilts. In the end it misses the Earth altogether.
Q 15Which kind of building becomes the family's new home on a lonely island in the novel Moominpappa at Sea?
A lighthouse
A lighthouse with a lamp he cannot mend is where Moominpappa hopes to prove himself. Homesick Moominmamma paints the flowers of her old garden across its walls.
Q 16In Finn Family Moomintroll, what do eggshells become when dropped into a magician's hat found on a mountain-top?
Clouds
Clouds, five of them, which the children ride and play on until they vanish the next day. The same hat later turns the whole Moominhouse into a jungle.
Q 17Which fuzzy little Moomin villain, a criminal by profession, always has a scheme or a racket on the go?
Stinky
Stinky is proud to be a crook, yet he keeps his own code: he is offended when the Moomins try to hand him a fortune that has brought them nothing but trouble.
Q 18What colour is the tall, round Moominhouse, the five-storey main attraction at Moomin World in Finland?
Blue
Blue is the colour of the Moominhouse, which Moominpappa built himself. In the stories he adds an extra storey because so many visitors make it feel cramped.
Q 19Which invisible child is slowly made visible again by Moominmamma's love and care in Tales from Moominvalley?
Ninny
Ninny faded from sight after her former caretaker frightened her too often. She becomes fully visible only when she flies into a rage to protect Moominmamma from a seaside prank.
Q 20What does Little My use as a sledge on the snowy hills in Tove Jansson's Moominland Midwinter?
A silver tea tray
A silver tea tray, borrowed from the sleeping Moominmamma, is Little My's sledge. Unlike Moomintroll, she finds the ice-cold new world great fun from the very first moment.
The Fillyjonk spends her days dreading disaster. When a storm finally wrecks everything she owns, she is astonished to find that the dread has gone with it.
Q 24Which inseparable pair arrive in Moominvalley clutching a suitcase that hides the stolen King's Ruby?
Thingumy and Bob
Thingumy and Bob speak a private language of their own. Their original names were the pet names that Tove Jansson and the stage director Vivica Bandler used for each other.
Q 25Which magician rides a flying panther across the universe in Finn Family Moomintroll, hunting for a giant ruby?
The Hobgoblin
The Hobgoblin looks alarming but proves kindly: at the end of the book he grants every guest at the Moomins' party a wish, though he cannot grant one of his own.
Q 26Which rule-loving official is the one person Snufkin truly dislikes, tearing down and burning the official's many signs?
The Park Keeper
The Park Keeper covers his lawns in notices forbidding everything. Snufkin drives him out by sowing Hattifatteners in the grass, then burns every last sign.
Q 27Which kind of weather draws the wandering Hattifatteners together once a year and leaves them dangerous to touch?
A thunderstorm
A thunderstorm recharges the Hattifatteners, who can then give electric burns. They cross the sea in silent convoys, always in odd numbers, forever heading for the horizon.
Q 28Which floating building becomes the Moomins' refuge after a volcanic wave swamps the valley in Moominsummer Madness?
A theatre
A theatre, though the family take it for an empty house until its resident stage rat, Emma, explains scenery and props. Moominpappa ends up writing a play for it.
Q 29Which final Moomin novel is the only one in which the Moomin family never actually appears?
Moominvalley in November
Moominvalley in November follows the visitors who turn up at the empty Moominhouse and wait. Jansson said she could not go back to the happy valley, so the series ended there.
Q 30Which natural disaster gives its name to the first Moomin book, published months after the Second World War ended?
A flood
A flood sweeps through The Moomins and the Great Flood, in which Moominmamma and Moomintroll search for the missing Moominpappa and end up finding the valley they will call home.