Books for children

‘Every person is a story that in no way resembles the story of anyone else. By reading, you find out what other people think.’ Taking this idea as a starting point, Sjoerd Kuyper has written Bizarre, a unique diary adventure packed with beautiful sentences and important thoughts and in which the truth is at stake. In addition, through his unforgettable protagonist, he incidentally raises all kinds of major social issues.

‘There is absolutely no structure in the world.’ This is the first thing that book- worm Sallie Mo (13) has noticed since she started keeping a diary. Writing a diary is a new experience for her: Bloem, the psychiatrist she has been seeing after the death of her beloved, wise Grandpa David, told her to do it. Go and live outside your books, was Bloem’s advice, and look at the world as it really is. And if you really can’t live without books, then write one yourself.

That, however, is more easily said than done. After all, who is in charge in a diary? ‘Real life’ or the writer? ‘Maybe everything you can imagine really does exist,’ says Sallie Mo. ‘Maybe nothing really exists and it’s all just thoughts.’ Kuyper has his protagonist struggle with such notions, presenting, with amused irony, a realistic teen who, aware that the truth is fluid, constantly misleads the reader.

The driving force behind the story is Sallie Mo’s planned conquest of her secret love, Dylan, who she meets every summer during her holiday in the Frisian Islands. When, together with Dylan and two other campers, she discovers a bunker where an armed banker’s daughter is in hiding from her rich father, the story gets really exciting.

The dramatic denouement is unexpectedly heart-breaking, but readers are not left dispirited. ‘A happy life,’ concludes Dylan, ‘means that you’ve searched well. […] If by the end you haven’t found the truth, at least you’ll have seen and heard everything that is beautiful.’ Bizarre is Kuyper at his best.

https://www.letterenfonds.nl/nl/boek/1307/bizar

Het zakmes shows how deep children’s friendships can be. Mees and his friend Tim, both six years old, are in grade three. The day before Tim moves to Almere he shows Mees his new beautiful red pocket-knife in the schoolyard. Mees is even allowed to hold it for a moment. When the teacher, one of the strict old-fashioned kind who don’t like pocket-knives, comes close by, Mees quickly puts the knife in his pocket. Immediately the bell rings and the boys run inside. The lesson starts and they forget the pocket-knife. The next day Mees wants to give the knife back but Tim has just gone with the removals van and has not left his new address behind.

There follows a whole series of attempts by Mees to return the pocket-knife. Attempts which demand enormous amounts of inventiveness, social skills, courage and perseverance. He tries to return the knife by mail, to put an ad in the paper in the secret code he and Tim had thought up together, to travel by train to Almere… all on his lonesome, because the grown-ups mustn’t find out.

He manages to keep it secret too because his mother, a famous singer, is seldom at home and his nonconformist father is busy being his mother’s secretary. Finally he auditions for a children’s programme on TV, gets onto the show and sings a song he has made up about the pocket-knife in the hope that Tim will be watching. In this way he is re-united with his friend.

With Mees, Kuyper has depicted a lively child whose faithfulness to his friend is moving and whose inventiveness is astounding. Reading Het zakmes is pure joy.

By Lieke van Duin (https://www.letterenfonds.nl/nl/boek/523/het-zakmes)

For this work of magical realism, Sjoerd Kuyper found inspiration on the island of Curaçao. He organised his thoughts in emails to his children, with songs, a monologue, a newspaper article. That was how the form of the book came about: ‘a love letter to the island of Curaçao, in 25 genres,’ as one reviewer wrote.

The focus is on 11-year-old Roly and Mila. They are looking for Roly’s dad, who has disappeared. Run off with another woman, scoffs Roly’s mum, but the reality turns out to be more exciting: Roly’s dad is lost in time. Ever since he dived under the pontoon bridge at new moon, he has been missing. Roly and Mila decide to bring him back to the present.

Masterfully, Kuyper combines diary excerpts, film scripts and comics to create a flowing and sparkling story, in which the perspective is constantly shifting. Sanne te Loo’s dreamy watercolours reinforce the atmosphere of magical realism, transporting the reader to the enchanting colours of Willemstad.

https://www.letterenfonds.nl/nl/boek/1557/de-duik

It’s the kind of day “for writing your name across the moon with a spray can”. Kos scores an impossible goal in front of a talent scout for the Ajax football team – and in front of Isabel, the most beauti­ful girl in the world. His dad is so over­joyed that he has a heart attack. From that point on, Kos seems to be the only one using his common sense – or at least trying to…

Things haven’t been going well at the hotel since Kos’s mum died, but without his dad there, it becomes impossible. How can you run a hotel and still keep on going to school? How can you paIt’s the kind of day “for writing your name across the moon with a spray can”. Kos scores an impossible goal in front of a talent scout for the Ajax football team – and in front of Isabel, the most beauti­ful girl in the world. His dad is so over­joyed that he has a heart attack. From that point on, Kos seems to be the only one using his common sense – or at least trying to…

Things haven’t been going well at the hotel since Kos’s mum died, but without his dad there, it becomes impossible. How can you run a hotel and still keep on going to school? How can you pay off a big loan when you have hardly any paying guests? Even the name of the hotel isn’t finished: they only got as far as the letter L.

And then there are his peculiar sisters. The youngest is in love with a seal, the eldest has fallen for the depressed village poet, and the middle one is keen on the captain of the Tuvaluan youth football team, who are staying at the hotel during a competition. When the hotel’s financial problems still aren’t solved, there’s only one option: winning the local beauty contest. And who’s going to take part? Exactly: Kos. Disguised as a girl, he ends up in the final with his beloved Isabel.

However comical these events may appear, ultimately the book is all about honesty, loving one another and daring to be yourself. It’s just as well that Kos pours his heart out to the microphone of an old tape recorder every evening – and that Isabel listens to the recordings and writes them down. Because that means every­thing turns out well in the end, and that we can enjoy it all in the form of this irresistible book.

https://www.letterenfonds.nl/nl/boek/1014/hotel-de-grote-l