CM Magazine
"This memoir is filled with delightful accounts of boyhood activities like playing marbles, stealing food from a nearby farm accessed by canoe, and attending school with colourful classmates...Highly Recommended."
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"[Will] be fascinating for olders teens to see that despite the war, childhood activities continued as parents tried to maintain as normal a life as possible for their children."
VOYA
This World War II memoir begins in May 1940 when the author, then age seven, wakes to the sight of German soldiers parachuting into fields near his home in The Hague. Within a week, Holland is an occupied country. After the initial shock and fear, life for Jan's family—his parents and a brother twelve years older than he—settles down. School continues, including the production of elaborate puppet shows by Jan and his classmates. His father goes on working as a Dutch police officer, but gradually any semblance of normal life fades. Schools close. Older brother Folkert is sent to work in a German factory, but he returns home by using forged papers. Jan's father offers their home as a "safe house" for people fleeing the Nazis. A Jewish woman, hidden in their house for a year, betrays them; and Jan's father is sent to a concentration camp. Shortages of food, electricity, and wood in the cities send many fleeing to the countryside, including Jan and his mother. After walking many miles, sleeping in haystacks and shelters, bartering chores for food, they find work and lodging with a kind farm family. When the war ends, they wend their way home and are elated to find Folkert; however, a priest arrives to say that Jan's father died after the liberation, and their hearts are broken. The story is told simply and effectively from a child's point of view. It contains details of the physical hardships and emotional turmoil experienced by citizens during war. The relative bounty of farm life makes a compelling contrast with the extreme shortages in cities. Pronunciation guides of Dutch names and words are included. In the epilogue, the author reflects on why war happens, asking ifhumankind will ever learn from these experiences. He suggests to his readers that they can be part of the answer. Reviewer: Florence H. Munat
VOYA
Born and raised in The Hague, Jan de Groot is seven when the Nazis invade The Netherlands in 1940. At first, Jan continues to sail on the waters and go to school, but he also listens closely as his father explains there will be hidden guests in their home about whom no one can know. His older brother is arrested and taken to Germany, and Jan's family is fearful, but his brother, an artist with a flair for forgery, creates the necessary paperwork to return home. Later, however, as the family is feeling the pinch of limited living supplies, Jan's father is arrested in connection with the "guests" he had been helping smuggle to Switzerland. Eventually Jan and his mother leave for the northeastern part of The Netherlands, hoping that they will be able to find food more easily out of the city, as residents of The Hague are literally starving to death. Their journey on train and foot illuminates the generosity of many along the way, and eventually takes them to a relative's home where they watch the Canadian troops come to liberate them. Although he, his mother, and brother are reunited, his father does not survive. Students looking for historical facts to fill out ideas alluded to in Lois Lowry's fictional Number the Stars (Houghton Mifflin, 1989) or a gentler memoir than Elie Wiesel's Night (Hill and Wang, 1960) can get a good sense of wartime living conditions in The Netherlands as well as the weight of loss of food, clothing, basic necessities, friends, and family. The role of the Canadians in the war is also highlighted. Although the first few chapters feel a bit choppy, the story hits its pace and becomes captivating as it continues. Reviewer: Mary Ann Darby
