Going to bed takes hours because they all want a kiss and are scared of the dark. Getting dressed ends up with Feodoor completely bundled up: seven sets of clothes on top of one another. Being ill can be a killer, because seven doctors immediately come running. And when they go camping, the seven sisters naturally sing all hundred verses of the campfire song, until the sun comes up again.

He only really has any fun on his birthday. Because that’s when Feodoor, as is right and proper, gets to call the shots. And then the sisters, after he’s unwrapped seven presents, have to do tricks in his circus!

Marjet Huiberts poetically combines five wonderful episodes with just as much rambunctious pleasure in rhyming as the famous Annie M.G. Schmidt. Illustrator Sieb Posthuma does what he’s good at and supports the story with pictures that are robust, yet also soft, in which he mixes ink and watercolour, pen and brush. The only one who doesn’t always have the best of times is Feodoor himself. What a bunch, those seven sisters!

By Pjotr van Lenteren