children also became apparent from the fact that accredited artists were recruited to
illustrate children’s books. The happy world of children can still be seen on the pictures
of Rie Cramer and Henriëtte Willebeek Lemair (who also illustrated a number of English
children’s books).
In children’s poetry of that period one finds the influence of nursery rhymes, and
themes such as dolls’ tea-parties, the arrival of a baby brother or sister, and small
children’s worries. In prose ‘domestic realism’ came into vogue, in which the world was
reduced to the children’s immediate surroundings (mainly countryside —the big city was
not considered a suitable setting in which to enjoy your childhood years). This genre
produced one of the first classics: Afke’s tiental (1903) [Afke’s Ten (1936)] by Nienke van
Hichtum: a story about a working-class family with ten children, kept together by a
loving, self-effacing mother.
Another classic was published a decade earlier: C.Joh. Kieviet’s Uit het leven van Dik
Trom [From the Life of Dik Trom] (1891) is the portrait of a ‘real Dutch boy’, who plays
all possible pranks, but has a heart of gold. Initially, it was praised as a revitalising and
refreshing boy’s novel, but when its success resulted in innumerable imitations and the
‘rascal’s story’ grew into an extensive genre, more and more objections were made:
boyish pranks were assumed to set bad examples; some people predicted that the genre
would create a lawless generation.
1945–1960: The Revolt against IsolationAfter the Second World War one may observe an increasing interest in children’s books.
At that time, there was great concern about an alleged cultural and social ‘decay’ among
children and young people; and good children’s books were considered as a means to
stop this process. This was why money was provided for the creation of the Bureau Boek
en Jeugd (Book and Youth Bureau) in 1952 to give information about children’s books.
At the opening of the first Children’s Book Week, in 1955, the first Children’s Book of
the Year award was presented (since 1971 this award has been continued as the Gouden
en Zilveren Griffel (Gold Pencil and Silver Pencil) (literally, Slate Pencil)).
The tone of children’s literature itself gradually changed, especially in the work of the
generation that made its debut after the war. The most striking example is Annie
M.G.Schmidt (1911–1995), who is generally recognised as the most versatile and most
talented children’s book author in The Netherlands. Her influence has been great and the
writers of the 1970s and 1980s are particularly indebted to her.
From the very beginning, her children’s books showed a happily anarchistic world,
which was completely new in Dutch children’s literature. She showed not even a vestige
of moralism, and there was often a rebellion against decorum. She began with poetry
(from 1947 in the newspaper Het Parool, and from 1950 in books). The form of her
poems has much in common with nursery rhymes: for instance, many repetitions,
alliteration and a great richness of sound. In content there are analogies as well,
especially in the many nonsense poems with mysterious formulae and illogical
associations. We meet eccentric characters, such as the mayor who paints ducks on the
walls of the town hall, but overcomes this habit in the end: ‘now he paints tigers on the
walls’. There are also subdued poems, about major events in a child’s life (‘The loose
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