Boktipset is a children's literature program running on Swedish public television company

Sveriges Television Sveriges Television AB ("Sweden's Television aktiebolag, Stock Company"), shortened to SVT (), is the Sweden, Swedish national public broadcasting, public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksd ...

1976–1989. The program was usually about three to five minutes long, but occasionally the author of the featured book would be interviewed in a fifteen-minute segment. About two hundred episodes were produced. The shorter episodes were frequently aired between shows, without listing in the official programme schedule. Literature scholar Stefan Mählqvist (1943-2024) hosted the show from a rainbow colored couch and read an excerpt from the book of the day. Mählqvist came up with the idea for the show while working at

Svenska barnboksinstitutet Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

. On busy days he recorded up to almost a dozen episodes a day, employing costume changes between each episode to reset the mood. The theme song, "The Swimming Song" featured on the album '' Attempted Mustache'' (1973) by

Loudon Wainwright III Loudon Snowden Wainwright III (born September 5, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actor. He has released twenty-six studio albums, four live albums, and six compilations. Some of his best-known songs include "The Swimmin ...

, was hummed at the beginning of each episode. The show was popular at the time and attracted a cult following. According to ''

Dagens Nyheter (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record A newspaper of record is a major nationa ...

'' its discontinuation left a void in media representation of

Children's literature Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...

References

{{Reflist Sveriges Television original programming

See also

References