The Children of Noisy Village

Save this book in the Audible format until you’re sick, deathly sick. Especially if you’re separated from your mother — either by distance or death — so that she is not available to feed you homemade soup, tuck you into bed, and otherwise coddle you and read you a story. The Children of Noisy Village makes a nice substitute when you’re ailing.

The six children of Noisy Village — 9-year-old Lisa; her mischievous older brothers, Karl and Bill; and neighbors Anna, Britta, and Olaf — don’t live in an actual village at all, but in a grouping of three farmhouses, as was the way in Sweden long ago, unlike in America where farms were spaced out. The three farmhouses got the affectionate nickname because of all of the ruckus an show more active pack of children can create.

Set in a time before electricity or automobiles made their way to rural Sweden, The Children of Noisy Village is as healing as hot tea, chicken soup, or a cool hand on your fevered forehead. Lisa recounts the fun she and the other children have celebrating a favorite birthday, Christmas Eve and Christmas, Easter, and New Year’s Eve; spending the night on Lake Nocken to capture crayfish during the season, a misbegotten trip to the actual village to pick up a few staples, and hours and hours of imaginative pretending and creative games. Such ordinary pursuits should have been dull or cloying, right? But Astrid Lindgren, best known for Pippi Longstocking and its sequels, infuses Lisa’s tale with so much wit and imagination that I lapped up this short book — well, like my mother’s chicken soup. Highly recommended to readers of all ages. show less

When I first brought this book home from the library (based entirely on GR reviews), my 6-year-old son said it looked "lame." However...after I persisted in reading the first few chapters, he was completely won over. This is the charming story of a year in Noisy Village (really just a cluster of three small farms), in long ago Sweden. 1920s? They travel by foot or occasionally horse-drawn sled, but I think there might be mention of a truck. The Children of the title are three girls and three boys, ranging in age from 9 to 11: the narrator, Lisa, her two older brothers, a set of sisters who live on one side and a boy (who has a toddler sister) on the other side.

It's all very wholesome and Swedish, with Lisa narrating events with a show more contagious wide-eyed enthusiasm. There's no real plot, although each chapter has a theme and tells a little story. The book just rambles on, much like childhood.

Although it's a lovely little nostalgic taste of yesteryear (whenever that was), it did make me grateful for a lot of modern conveniences. The poor mothers never get to do any of the fun activities, like cutting down the Christmas tree or camping out at the lake to catch crayfish. They're too darn busy cooking, cleaning, etc., even though they have hired help. show less

Ok, I suppose this is not likely to appeal a lot to adults who don't read picture-books, but *I* personally, was utterly enchanted. I want to be one of these children, or one of the parents, or the teacher - what an absolutely delightful community. I'm 3/8 Swedish, and after reading this I can guess from which family traditions I got a lot of the ethics of kindness, and of finding joy in simple things, and of having fun in any season.

Delightful read about a young girl, her family, and two other families that live in close proximity to each other in the Swedish countryside. I love how the children are real, and the adults aren't treated as buffoons. The author adds some Swedish traditions to the mix that make this book even more special. Now I have to find the other books in the series...

Welcome to Noisy Village! Go crayfishing in the summer at Nocken, "dipping in the pot" at Christmastime with Lisa and Karl, and join Britta and Anna who know the best way to go about "nutting" for the New Year. In this gently humorous tale, master storyteller Astrid Lindgren takes us through a year in the lives and customs of six Swedish children living on a group of three farms in the countryside.

Welcome to Noisy Village! Go crayfishing in the summer at Nocken, "dipping in the pot" at Christmastime with Lisa and Karl, and join Britta and Anna who know the best way to go about "nutting" for the New Year. In this gently humorous tale, master storyteller Astrid Lindgren takes us through a year in the lives and customs of six Swedish children living on a group of three farms in the countryside.

I’m the father of a very early reader, fairly fluent at three and a half years, and for this summer’s trip to the country we decided to try and keep the bulk of picture books down by trying a chapter book for slightly older children to read out loud. He loved it, and we’ve had a grwat time snuggling up by the fire as dusk sets outside to read a chapter or two of Astrid Lindgen.

The books about Noisy Village were my favorites when I was a child, although it’s hard to understand why – on the surface at least. Not full of gently anarchy like Pippi, or the fantasy of Ronja or the Brothers Lionheart, these books tell mainly of the games and everyday life of a group of children in a very small farming village in the early 1900-eds. show more At a quick glance it even looks mundane, but re-reading it for the first time as an adult it still works it’s quiet magic on me, with the exciting games the kids come up with – treasure hunts, digging caves in haystacks, sneaking out at night to look for folklore creatures and so on. The only thing that peeves me now is the endless polarization of boys versus girls, but at least the girls are allowed to come out triumphant at times.

We started with this, the middle book of the three, since that was the one we happened to have at home. But we bought the other two books on our visit to the Astrid Lindgren theme park just a few weeks ago, and are now almost through with the first book as well. show less