Kerstin and I by Astrid Lindgren. Short summary

5 seconds

The 16-year-old twins, Cherstin and Barbara, travel with their parents from the city to the countryside, to their father’s ancestral home. They arrive at the dilapidated house, which the characters must rebuild.

1 minute

The story is about Cherstin and Barbara—16-year-old twin sisters. The girls and their parents travel from the city to the village where their father’s ancestral estate is located. While the heroines were growing up, they had never seen the place and knew about it only from their father’s stories.

Papa spoke rapturously of the Christmas they had spent on the estate, the family celebrations, the summer solstice dances. He recalled ghost stories he’d heard by the fireplace, trips to the lake. It seemed to his sisters that their own childhood in the city was dull and colorless.

The family arrives at a dilapidated house that they have to rebuild. The heroes gradually become accustomed to farm labor. The sisters ask their mother to distract them from their father to fry them a pudding. The father shames the daughters, saying that they are grown-up maidens and can do it on their own. Then the girls go to the kitchen and cook for themselves.