Emil i Lönneberga is a children's book series by Astrid Lindgren, about the young boy Emil, living in a farm in early 20th century Småland, Sweden. Emil is known for his mischief and "pranks" he pulls on others, but in reality, most of the time he just tries to help others and have fun. Whenever his father gets angry with him, his mother locks him in the toolshed to save him, where Emil spends time whittling wooden figures, and his mother writes down every act of mischief he commits.
Provides examples of:
- A Bloody Mess: When Emil has accidentally tipped blood pudding all over his father, the first person to see this is the peasant woman Krösa-Maja, who thinks that Emil has killed his father.
- Chimney Entry: Inverted by Emil climbing up the chimney, to escape from the toolshed. From the roof, his Ash Face terrifies Lina the maid, who screams that there is a "Howliboo".
- Closet Punishment: When Emil gets into mischief (almost every day), his mother locks him in the toolshed, where he passes the time carving little wooden men. When this happens three times in one day, he angrily decides to stay in the shed forever, while his family plead with him to come out.
- Department of Redundancy Department: When listing the characters at the beginning of Emil gets into Mischief, the author mentions Emil, whose name is Emil.
- Direct Line to the Author: The books are supposedly based on the writings of Emil's mother, who meticulously wrote down all of Emil's pranks in blue notebooks. Sometimes Lindgren directly quotes from these books either before or after telling about the incident in greater detail, often adding her own thoughts about them and at one point criticizing Emil's mother for being too inaccurate and leaving out important details.
- DIY Dentistry: One story has Emil trying to pull out Lina's aching tooth. Three attempts fail, so she ends up going to the local blacksmith - the doctor lives a bit far, so he is the one to handle such things for the villagers.
- "Eureka!" Moment: In one of Emil's adventures, there is a part where a man buys an unshod horse. All attempts to shoe it fail due to the horse kicking, and one man remarks that the buyer was cheated - at home, they tried to shoe it twenty times. Angry, the trader says anyone can have the horse for free, but when Emil takes him up on the offer, says he'll need to get him shod first. However, the horse's reaction reminded Emil (a five years old) of his family's servant, and he realized that the horse is merely ''ticklish''. So, he manages by holding the horse's hooves, which have no nerves by definition. The trader tries to back out of the deal, but the crowd forces him to keep his word.
- First-Name Ultimatum: Emil's father has a tendency to shout "EEEEEMIIIIL!!!" when Emil gets into mischief, or just has done something he doesn't want him to do.
- Innocent Swearing: In one of the stories, Emil decides to teach his little sister Ida all the words he gets chastised for saying, and telling her she must not ever use these words. He is quite honest in his intentions, he's just become victim to some Insane Troll Logic.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Emil the little boy is best friends with his family's adult farmhand Alfred. It's especially notable in this case since Emil values it above virtually everything else in his life, shown when Alfred almost dies from sepsis.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Emil's father. He's an insufferable cheapskate and overly temperamental, but at the end of the day he's really quite soft-hearted. Especially for the era the stories are set in, when a child like Emil would normally not have gotten away from punishment just by locking himself in a shed for a few hours for his father to calm down.
- Lemony Narrator: The author often addresses the reader, especially when refusing to tell about Emil did on the third of November.
- May It Never Happen Again: In one story, Emil accidentally gets drunk off expired cherries. This makes his mother very disappointed in him even though it was an accident, partly because he's a child and partly because the family is Lutheran (Lutherans frown on drunkenness). At the end of the story, it notes that because of this incident, Emil became The Teetotaler when he grew up.
- Mistaken for Transformed: In one story, Emil goes missing. His little sister, Ida, heard a song about a woman who turned into a bird and flew up to Heaven, so when she sees a chicken, she mistakes it for her brother and says, "Please don't fly up to Heaven!"
- Naughty Is Good: Astrid seemed to do everything she could to describe Emil of Lönneberga as the worst child ever. Or, that is what she would do in the prologues to the books. But as soon as the stories start for real, it is made clear that Emil too has a heart of gold. Oh sure, he might be mischievous and/or rude sometimes. But it seems like most of his "pranks" are just accidents, and he will do good things like helping misunderstood animals and poor elderly people. Not to mention that he saved his best friend's life by taking him to the doctor through a terrible blizzard. Emil's sister Ida is by contrast a perfect well-behaved child. And it also means that she's not as interesting as he is, and she only gets one A Day in the Limelight — which is the story of how she tries hard to misbehave so she'll get the same punishment as Emil.
- Noodle Incident: The author "has been sworn to secrecy" about what Emil did on the Third of November, so she teases the readers about it at every opportunity. That was the time the villagers took up a collection to send Emil to America.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: Many of Emil's "pranks" are actually sincere attempts to be helpful that just don't quite work out as he'd planned.
- Pajama-Clad Hero: When Emil is locked in the toolshed three times in one day for mischief, the first time being as soon as he gets out of bed, he does not have time to get dressed, so he stays in his nightshirt all day.
- Percussive Therapy: When Emil decides that he will stay in the toolshed for the rest of his days, he bangs his fist down on the bench with a crash.
- Precision F-Strike:
- In one story, the farmhand Alfred tries for a long time to come up with a way to tell the maid Lina that he is not interested in marrying her, keeps stalling because he wants to say it in "A somewhat nice way" in order to not hurt her feelings. Ultimately, he tells her; "You know Lina, that engagement we have been talking about? I really think it's a pretty shitty idea." The narrator then explains to the reader that "I do not want to teach you any bad words, but that was really the best poor Alfred could come up with." It also has more impact in Swedish, where the original term, "vi skiter i det", was very foul by the time the story takes place in, but was also the worst way you could tell someone "let's just forget the whole thing". Not that it works, since Lina just laughs it off and tells poor Alfred he's not getting off that easy.
- In one book, Emil's father berates him for spending some money he'd gotten on lemonade. Emil explodes, "when I have no money I can't drink lemonade, when I have money I'm not allowed to drink lemonade, so when the devil am I supposed to drink lemonade?" Once he calms down he feels ashamed of not just yelling at his father but actually swearing at him.
- This leads to a scene later in the same chapter, where Emil goes through a number of really severe swear words with his little sister, in order to teach her the things she must absolutely never say.
- Prefers Going Barefoot: Emil's father goes barefoot in the mornings, because it feels nice. He tries to persuade Emil's mother to do likewise, to save on shoe leather. Unfortunately he gets his toe caught in a rat-trap, which Emil had placed to prevent a rat from chewing his father's big toe.
- Tantrum Throwing: When the villagers present Emil's mother with money to send Emil to America, his mother is furious, and flings the money all over the place.
