International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature

they have hardly any personal features and are all the same height, and they ignore
their normal behaviour. And so it can happen that the sperm whale dances with the
seagull, the elephant disappears behind the clouds, and the hippopotamus retires from
the wood to live in the air, where the other animals bring him a pond for his birthday.
The most remarkable titles are Toen niemand iets te doen had [When Nobody had
Anything to Do] (1987) and Langzaam, zo snel als zij konden [Slowly, as Fast as They
Could] (1989).
Imme Dros (1936) works in very heterogeneous genres, which makes it difficult to
briefly classify her work. She published her first children’s book in 1971, but gained her
greatest recognition in recent years. The book taking a central place in her work is
Annetje Lie in het holst van de nacht (1987) [Annelie in the Depths of the Night, 1991].
Rather like Els Pelgrom’s Kleine Sofie en Lange Wapper, it relates the dreams of a little
girl, symbolising her situation in reality. Annelie’s father leaves her with her
grandmother without any explanation. Her confusion, later increased by a feverish
illness, reveals itself in frightening dreams about mysterious, threatening characters
from her grandmother’s stories and songs. The story is written in evocative language,
full of the whimsical, associative jumps of thought which are characteristic of dreams.
Because of these qualities the book is very complicated, unless one reads it like poetry,
without trying to comprehend it from beginning to end. In her subsequent works Imme
Dros shows the same mastery in simpler stories, in which the emotions are expressed
more directly.
Dutch children’s literature has achieved a very high level, as the many translations
and foreign awards show. Because of the increase of artistic freedom and the emphasis
on literary aspects, children’s books have become more interesting for adults as well,
but as the borderline between children’s and adults’ books fades the question has to be
asked—are there any borders at all?

References

Ariès, P. (1960) L’enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Régime, Paris: Editions du Seuil.
Heimeriks, N. and van Toorn, W. (eds) (1989) De hele Bibelebontse berg. De geschiedenis van het
kinderboek in Nederland en Vlaanderen van de middeleeuwen tot heden, Amsterdam: Em.
Querido.

Further Reading

Bekkering, H. (1993) De emancipatie van kinder- en jeugdliteratuur, in Schenkeveld-van der
Dussen, M.A. (ed.), Nederlandse literatuur; een geschiedenis, Groningen: Martinus Nijhoff.
Boonstra, B. (1993) ‘Er was eens een waseens; de jeugdliteratuur’, in Matsier, N. et al. (eds) Het
literair klimaat 1986–1992, Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij.
de Vries, A. (1989) Wat heten goede kinderboeken? Opvattingen over kinderliteratuur in Nederland
sinds 1880, Amsterdam: Querido.
Holtrop, A. (1986) ‘Eenvoudig is niet hetzelfde als simpel; over kinderliteratuur’, in van Deel, T.,
Matsier, N. and Offermans, C. (eds) Het literair klimaat 1970–1985, Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij.

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