Last night I provided shelter to a purring lady who entered my apartment through the attic window and, on being asked, informed me that she had once been a cat...- The Cat Who Came in Off the Roof No list of #DutchKidLit would be complete without Minoes or The Cat Who Came in Off the … Continue reading #DutchKidLit – The Cat who Came in off the Roof by Annie M.G. Schmidt
The beauty of the close, mutually supportive relationship between brothers Vincent and Theo van Gogh at the end of Vincent's turbulent life is the heart and soul of this graphic biography, written by cartoonist Barbara Stok for the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Stok "based scenes and storylines in Vincent on Van Gogh’s letters to his brother … Continue reading #DutchKidLit Young Adult Biography – Vincent by Barbara Stok
Today is September 11 and it is the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States of America. That Tuesday morning in 2001, I was working for the Ithaca City School District in Upstate New York and along with a class full of my husband's middle school ICT students, we watched incredulously … Continue reading #DutchKidLit Nonfiction – Palm Trees at the North Pole: The Hot Truth about Climate Change by Marc ter Horst
Shortlisted for the 2021 Global Literature in Libraries Initiative Translated YA Book Prize I always thought death would look different.A bit like in the movies.Spectacular, sad, or perhaps scary.But your death was lonely,even though there were four people around you:three people watching -- and me,your murderer. - Murderer, Fright Night What if you had the … Continue reading #DutchKidLit – Fright Night by Maren Stoffels
Shortlisted for the 2020 Global Literature in Libraries Initiative Translated YA Book Prize “Don’t be fooled, Michiel, by the romance of war, heroism, sacrifice, excitement, adventure. War means injuries, grief, torture, imprisonment, hunger, hardship, injustice. There’s nothing romantic about it.”- Winter in Wartime This award-winning Dutch children’s classic is a gripping World War II adventure … Continue reading #DutchKidLit – Winter in Wartime by Jan Terlouw
Shortlisted for the 2020 Global Literature in Libraries Initiative Translated YA Book Prize This charming, bittersweet fable about the madness of war won its author the Gouden Lijst Prize for Children’s Literature in his native Netherlands, and comes lavished with gloriously intricate pen-and-ink illustrations by Ludwig Volbeda.- Financial Times A quick look at the illustrations … Continue reading #DutchKidLit – Tortot, the Cold Fish who Lost His World and Found His Heart by Benny Lindelauf
Image: Canonslinger 2020 wall chart. The Canon of the Netherlands is a huge cultural project that tells a story about the historical and cultural development of the Netherlands from ± 5500 BC to present. The Canon was first conceived in 2006 and was recently updated in June 2020. It is now a 50-window timeline using … Continue reading #DutchKidLit and The Canon of the Netherlands, Part 1 – Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl
The world of Akissi, beautifully illustrated by M. Sapin. Observations: My lovely friend, Louise introduced me to the wonderful world of graphic novels, specifically in French. We met when we both lived in Chile, she is from Paris and I am from London, but Spanish is our common language. Each time she visited me in … Continue reading Day 21: 🇨🇮 Akissi: Tales of Mischief
The Copenhagen Trilogy consists of Childhood (1967), Youth (1967) and Dependency (1971). They were first published by Penguin in English in 2019. Book 1: Childhood In a Nutshell: Childhood is the first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, from one of Denmark’s most celebrated twentieth-century writers. Childhood is written in a similar vein to Elena Ferrante’s … Continue reading Day 19: 🇩🇰 The Copenhagen Trilogy
What initially makes The Immortal Boy, written by Colombian author Francisco Montaña Ibáñez, stand out from other YA novels is its innovative dual language format. Published this year by Levine Querido, the book can be read in English or in Spanish, depending on how one holds the book. On one side, the reader can read … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: The Immortal Boy
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 