These are fun and simple stories of several Swedish children growing up in a small community of farms called Noisy Village. The story is told through the mind of Lisa, a girl of nine, almost ten. Mommy calls her a 'big girl' but her brothers say she is 'too little' to play with them. My favorite chapter as a child--and as an adult--is when Lisa and her best friend plan to run away. There are a few minor objectionable parts: brief boy-girl teasing, one swear word, some name calling. 

I love the black-and-white illustrations of little girls in dresses and pigtails. Astrid Lingren also wrote Pippi Longstocking, which is fanciful, but this book is written realistically.