On the back of this book it says:

Around her eightieth birthday Annie Schmidt started to write down "what she remembered" of her childhood in Zeeland. Growing up amid devout farmers, faithful churchgoers in black suits or white bonnets, little Anna could not help feeling like a "city girl", the odd one out. "No, we weren't outdoors people, we were homebodies. The parsonage was our castle, and inside it we thought we were safe from the farmers' harsh world." But Anna/Annie also had a sharp eye for the foibles of the big, warm, familiar parsonage she was growing up in. She can be merciless, but elsewhere she shows deep empathy.