Translated from the original Dutch, this book is the story of Fing and her family. Fing’s mother died years ago and since then her father and her grandmother have taken care of them. They are a big family, with Fing’s three older brothers and her two sisters, Muulke and Jess. Fing’s father has decided to start a cigar business, so they move out of town to a big old house that has something very strange about it that Fing can’t quite figure out. They call it Nine Open Arms, because that is how far across it is. The house is near a cemetery, the front door is at the back, and there is a bed in storage that looks like a tombstone. As the girls start a new school, they slowly begin to discover the secrets of Nine Open Arms and of their own community and family.

Delightfully wild and incredibly quirky, this book is one of a kind. From the family that moves constantly, to the cemetery next door where they go to get their water each day, to the crocodile purse that is used to tell family stories, to the controlling grandmother who is dominant but deeply loving in her own way, to the one old story that is the key to understanding it all. This is a richly rewarding read, one that you have to head out on before you even know what journey you are on. It is a book that meanders but each turn is essential to the book in the end, where it all clicks into place.

Told in the first person by Fing, the book unfolds before you, each reveal another piece of the family, another story, another moment that is meaningful. It is a perfectly crafted book that has a plot that moves in its own time, another time, a less modern pace. It ties to the pace of the family, one where things are revealed in their own space. It’s incredibly well done.

Beautifully written, magnificently crafted, this Dutch novel is like nothing you have read before, and that is wonderful! Appropriate for ages 9-12.