Pippi followed her guests out to the porch and watched them disappear through the garden. They turned around to wave. The light from inside shone on her. There she stood with her stiff red braids, dressed in her father's nightshirt which billowed around her feet. In one hand she held a pistol and in the other the sword. She saluted with it.

When Tommy and Annika and their father reached the gate they heard her calling. They stopped to listen. The wind whistled through the trees so they could just barely hear what she said.

"I'm going to be a pirate when I grow up," she cried. "Are you?"

About the Author

Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002) was born in Sweden. After college, she worked in a newspaper office and a Swedish publishing house. Pippi Longstocking was originally published in Swedish in 1950, and was later translated into many other languages. It was followed by two sequels, Pippi Goes on Board (1957) and Pippi in the South Seas (1959). Astrid Lindgren was the first children's book writer to win the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1978). She also won the Hans Christian Andersen Medal (1958), the highest international award in children's literature. She has two children.