The Sisters 8 2 – Durinda’s Dangers

Lauren Baratz-Logsted's Durinda's Dangers is a Sisters 8 story for 6 year olds about eight sisters, one heartbroken fridge and a power nobody asked for.

What happens

The Huit girls are octuplets and they're running the house on their own. Their parents vanished on New Year's Eve and nobody knows where they went. The girls have been coping ever since (shopping, paying bills and forging Daddy's signature included).

Annie has already found her special power. Now it's Durinda's turn, and Durinda is the sister who does all the cooking.

It's February. The talking fridge (who turns out to be called Carl) is crying so hard the freezer is melting all over the kitchen floor. He's in love with Betty the cleaning robot, and Betty doesn't notice him at all. Meanwhile all eight sisters are secretly making the best valentine for the same boy in their class.

Then Durinda loses her temper at dinner. She taps her leg three times, points, and two of her sisters freeze solid. Oops!

The whole book is told by the eight girls together as "we", and it's very funny. They squabble, they glare, they gang up on each other. Georgia stays frozen the longest, which nobody seems too sorry about. Even Durinda's cat gets the power and starts freezing the other cats so she can eat all their food!

There's a real heart to it as well. The girls get so carried away with their valentines that they hurt someone's feelings, and they feel awful about it. It's a gentle way into what being left out feels like, and it's handled kindly.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The missing parents hang over everything, and the sisters often add "or dead" when they mention them. It's played for dark laughs rather than sadness, but a child who worries about losing a parent might not find it funny. Most readers will simply love eight girls running their own house, with a suit of armour dressed up as Daddy at the dinner table.

What to read next

If they haven't met the Huits yet, start with Annie's Adventures, where the parents pop out for firewood and eggnog on New Year's Eve and don't come back.