The agricultural world is still in a pre-industrial state (no tractors or harvesters) and the arrival of a car is a big event, because the road ends there.

The narrator is a young girl named Lisa; she tells about her life and adventures in the small and neat Swedish village Bullerby.

The village consists of three lined up houses in which live seven children with their parents and housekeepers: Lisa with her older brothers Lasse and Bosse, the siblings Britta and Anna, as well as Olle with his younger sister Kerstin.

The two films by Lasse Hallström were reworked into a seven-episode TV-series, titled Alla vi barn i Bullerbyn, that was broadcast in 1989.

Some scenes in the film adaptations were shot in the small hamlet Stensjö by in Småland.