(translation by Florence Lamborn)
My name is Lisa, and I am a girl, as you can tell by my name. I am nine years old, but I'll soon be ten.
Somtimes my mother says, "You're Mommy's big girl and you can dry the dishes today."
But other times Karl and Bill - they're my brothers - say, "We don't want any little girls playing Indians with us. You're too little."
So I wonder which I am, big or little. When some people think you're big and some think you're little, maybe that means you're just the right size.
Karl is eleven years old and Bill is ten. Karl is awfully strong and can run faster than I can, but I can run just as fast as Bill. Sometimes, when the boys don't want me to play with them, Karls holds me while Bill runs a little way to get a head start on me. Then when Karl lets me go he runs away from me as easily as anything. It's too bad that I don't have any sisters, because boys are such a nuisance.
We live on a farm called Middle Farm, because it's right between two other farms. The others are called North Farm and South Farm, and all three of them are in a row like this:
(picture of three houses)
They really don't look exactly like this because I can't draw very well. Everybody calls the farms Noisy Village because there are so many children around, making so much noise all the time.
A boy named Olaf lives at South Farm. He has a little sister named Kerstin who is a year and a half old. Olaf plays with Karl and Bill. He is ten years old and runs fast too.
At North Farm there are two girls and no boys. What luck! Britta is eleven years old, and Anna is just my age. I like them both very much. Well, maybe I like Anna just a little bit more.
That's all the children there are in Noisy Village.