Lucy Fitch Perkins (1865–1937)

What a treat! I remember this fondly from when I read it aged 7 (the image of tiny plump Dutch children sleeping in cupboards stayed with me, but little else), and am thrilled that it's better than I remember: funny, sly, gentle, kind-hearted, and (now that I know more about the Netherlands and my Dutch heritage) very accurate.

She nails how small children think (or don't) and behave, which I wouldn't have realised on first reading when young. (Good authors write about how people are, poor authors write about how characters act in books, which is not the same thing, and the reason why poorly-written books age badly as tastes change, but the great writers are still with us, and still ring true.)

There are moments throughout the book demonstrating this. Here's a section where Kit and Kat are disappointed that they might miss out on a milk wagon ride, due to wearing their best clothes:

Grandmother went to the press and brought out two aprons. One was a very small apron. It woudn't reach to Kit's knees ... "This was your Uncle Jan's when he was a little boy," she said. "It's pretty small, but it will help some." Kit wished that Uncle Jan had taken it with him when he went to America, but he didn't say so.

Then Grandmother took another apron out of the press. It looked as if it had been there a long time. "Kat, you must wear this," she said. "It was your mother's when she was a little girl."

Now, this apron was all faded, and it had patches on it of different kinds of cloth. Kat looked at her best dress. Then she looked at the apron. Then she thought about the milk cart. She wondered if she wanted to go in the milk cart badly enough to wear that apron over her Sunday dress! She stuck her finger in her mouth and looked sidewise at Grandmother Winkle.

Grandmother didn't say a word. She just looked firm and held up the apron. Very soon Kat came slowly— very slowly— and Grandmother buttoned the apron up behind, and that was the end of that.

One reviewer, I think unfairly, worried about early statements that boys are better than girls at certain things, but Lucy Fitch Perkins clearly doesn't believe it herself, and often shows Kat's good sense compared to Kit's with moments like these, througout the book:

"What do you suppose the Vink is?" said Kat to Kit. "I think it is something like a church," said Kit. "You don't know what a Vink is, so there," said Kat. "I think it's something to eat." Then Kit changed the subject.

I'm half-Dutch, so particularly sought this out as a child, but it's so good that I'm now going to look for the others by her, she's terrific.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!… (more)

Holland- as we imagine it at least!
By sally tarbox on 8 Aug. 2011
Format: Hardcover
Fitch Perkins apparently wrote a whole series about twins in various countries. I read this aged 8 and adored it; it gives the young reader an idea of what the Netherlands was once like through the twins' adventures, wonderfully illustrated in black & white. Getting their skates, celebrating St Nicholas Day,and who could forget Kit falling in the dyke and being pulled out by his baggy Dutch trousers, or catching hold of a windmill's sails and being carried up in the sky. A great kids' book (further to the previous reviewer's complaint about no pictures, I have the Jonathan Cape hardback edition of 1953)… (more)