Children's Books Spring 2012

ederlands N letterenfonds dutch foundation for literature A selection from 2011 Children’s Books Spring 2012 2+ Cheerful Mies van Hout 2+ What Are You Doing in My Bed? Joke van Leeuwen 4+ Miss Van Zanten and the Seven Robbers Mathilde Stein and Dorine de Vos 4+ Ensor: The Great Masquerade 6+ Daddy, Can You Marije Tolman Hear Me? Tamara Bos and Annemarie van Haeringen 7+ My Grandpa and 8+ A Horse in Three Me, and Grandma Parts the Pig Ted van Lieshout Marjolijn Hof, Judith Ten Bosch 10+ My Name Is Olivia and I Can’t Do Anything About That 10+ Winter Jowi Schmitz Animals Bibi Dumon Tak, Martijn van Linden 10+ Firebomb 10+ Then Came Sam Harm de Jonge Edward van de Vendel 10+ Your Best Friend, Anne 15+ Bajaar Jacqueline van Mies van Hout Maarsen 10+ Hidden Like Anne Frank Marcel Prins and 15+ Barbed Wire Peter Henk Steenhuis Derk Visser Children’s Books from Holland Page 2 Children’s Books from Holland Page 3 2+ Cheerful 4+ Miss Van Zanten and Mies van Hout is an illustrator who, in a short period of time and without too much ado, has filled children’s bookshelves Mies van Hout with her colourful illustrations, including for stories by the Seven Robbers Mathilde Stein and Hanna Kraan. Vrolijk is her first picture book without outside involvement from another writer. Mathilde Stein and Inspired by a children’s workshop where she experimented with oil pastels, she developed a new technique, which she then went on to use in her own picture book. Dorine de Vos While Van Hout’s previous work with gouache and acrylics left space for air and light, in this new picture book she worked on black paper. This gives the pages an intrigu- A band of rowdy robbers lies in ambush, wait- ing sort of darkness, with the somewhat sketch-like illustra- ing to attack the stagecoach. ‘“Hey! Men!” tions shining out. cried Berend. “Draw your pistols, quick! / At a time when children are growing up with emoticons, Here’s the stagecoach, packed with cash and Van Hout gives a new interpretation to emotions. On every gold!” / Oh dear, they don’t know who’s inside. spread, a different fish swims towards the viewer, with its / If only they’d been told...’ Inside the coach is mood articulated in expressive letters on the page next to it none other than Miss Van Zanten, a parenting by the artist herself (including in the expert who is determined to teach the motley seven translations that have been crew some manners. With her infectious sense published so far). Van Hout placed of humour, Mathilde Stein has written a crazy her fish directly onto paper without rhyming ballad, whose quirkiness is reminis- making any preliminary sketches. cent of the work of Annie M.G. Schmidt. But A proud fish swims with its nose the robbers don’t take it lying down and they held high, while a nervous one is succeed in turning this respectable lady into a Author Mathilde Stein Author/Illustrator This picture book helps composed of a jumble of shaky lines. great robber. Stein aims for exactly the same Mies van Hout A school of fish that, whether they’re cheerful undermining of authority that made Illustrator Dorine de Vos A wonderful story full Age 2+ toddlers and pre-schoolers to sad or surprised, will certainly make Schmidt so popular with her young readers. Age 4+ Pages 40 the reader feel pretty cheerful. Dorine de Vos, the art director responsible for of galloping horses and Pages 32 Publisher recognise their emotions and the design of Rotterdam’s famous Hotel New Lemniscaat York, illustrated this picture book with its cha- Publisher banging pistols.’ Margriet Lemniscaat Contact for rights give names to them. Not only otic, anarchic drawings in a colourful child-like Diana Garibbo style; her bristly baddies’ faces look mischie- Contact for rights [email protected] that, it is also a wonderful Diana Garibbo vous rather than dangerous. And so the delib- [email protected] Rights sold A festive explosion of German, French, English, book to browse through erate inelegance of the illustrations is a perfect Rights sold Italian, Chinese, Japanese, match for the unconventional text. Portugese eccentricity. Trouw Basque endlessly. Parool goers are made up of soft shades, with Ensor’s 2+ What Are You 4+ Ensor: The Great black hat and tailcoat forming a fine contrast. As in De boomhut, the award-winning picture book that Tolman created with her father, which has Doing in My Bed? Masquerade been exhibited all over the world, an atmosphere of dreamy melancholy fills the pages. The simple Joke van Leeuwen Marije Tolman sentences sweep the reader along into a world where masks rain down and Death is a welcome guest who makes a wonderful partner for a dance ‘What are you doing in my bed?’ These words in the waves. Ensor, de grote maskerade is a echo like a mantra through the pages of Joke van A wonderful picture book richly imaginative interpretation of the life of one Leeuwen’s picture book for toddlers. Although Author/Illustrator of Flanders’ most important innovators in modern Marije Tolman technically speaking, ‘pages’ isn’t quite the right about Ensor’s wondrous art. This is a musical picture book with a never- word. Waarom lig jij in mijn bedje? is constructed Age 4+ ending conga as its enchanting finale. as a ‘leporello’, a concertina book that can be Pages 28 realm of thought: crazy, folded out to make a strip that’s a couple of metres Publisher long. A typical Joke van Leeuwen child (big nose, Leopold serious, light-hearted, little eyes) throws his bear out of bed for being too Contact for rights Dania van Dishoeck melancholy, light and big and too warm. With a ‘Go and sleep in your d.van.dishoeck@ own bed!’, he tells the bear to scram. Bear leaves singel262.nl dark. Leeuwarder Courant for another bed, where he finds another cuddly toy, and asks the big question: ‘What are you doing in my bed?’ And the question goes from cuddly toy to bed to cuddy toy until it arrives at the last little The modern symbolist James Ensor (1860–1949) ragdoll – and there’s no bed left for him. Is it a sad from the Flemish coastal town of Ostend is famous and sorry tale? Not at all. Because if you turn No one can top the for his paintings of masks, skeletons and other around the fold-out book and follow the ragdoll’s strange figures. What is less well known is that he Author/Illustrator journey back past all the beds, you’ll find that there simple ingenuity of Joke van Leeuwen also composed music. Marije Tolman, winner of is a place left in one of the beds – and it’s just the Age 2+ the Gouden Penseel and the Bologna Ragazzi right size for a ragdoll. Joke van Leeuwen’s Award, has combined these two disciplines in a Pages 16 Following Heb je mijn zusje gezien?, Joke van wistful picture book, which is part of a successful latest picture book: Publisher Leeuwen has written and illustrated another abso- Querido series of illustrated art books published by Leopold lute hit for toddlers with Waarom lig jij in mijn and the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. In Ensor, Waarom lig jij in mijn Contact for rights bedje? It’s playfully illustrated with clear shapes, Lucienne van der Leije de grote maskerade, the artist goes on a fantastic large areas of colour, a minimum of details and it bedje? De Volkskrant [email protected] journey, starting and ending by his beloved sea. isn’t too sweet; the ‘Go and sleep in your own bed’ The illustrations of peculiar sea creatures, human- theme is firmly anchored in the story. sized insects and imaginatively attired carnival- Children’s Books from Holland Page 4 Children’s Books from Holland Page 5 One of them is nearing the end of his life, while 6+ Daddy, Can You Hear Me? 7+ My Grandpa and Me, the other is at the beginning, but they both know very well that ‘getting older is something that happens all by itself’, even though time Tamara Bos and and Grandma the Pig seems to stand still in the safe little world they have created for themselves. ‘You know it can’t Annemarie van Haeringen Marjolijn Hof, go on like this, don’t you?’, the granddaughter asks her grandpa. ‘One day it’ll be over and I won’t come to stay anymore.’ Judith Ten Bosch Hof wisely does not introduce any other Author characters: that would only disturb the close Tamara Bos Papa, hoor je me? may already relationship between grandfather and grand- Illustrator daughter. She keeps her story beautifully Annemarie van Haeringen be considered as one of the Biography ‘small’, playing with language, expanding Age 6+ The many books that Marjolijn Hof (b. 1956) things and inverting them, and suggesting so Pages 48 best books ever written in this read as a child inspired her to start writing much through clever dialogue alone. And so Publisher stories at a young age. However, it was a long the fact that the grandmother’s not around Leopold genre. Volkskrant time before she decided to share her talent needs no explanation. It’s just as self-explana- Contact for rights with the outside world. In 2006, after twenty tory as a pig eating pancakes and a grand- Dania van Dishoeck d.van.dishoeck@ years as a librarian, her book Een kleine kans father who one day will no longer be there.

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