Janneke Schotveld

Janneke Schotveld (b. 1974) is one of the most popular writers in the Netherlands today. Nearly every Dutch child has read a book from her eight-part ‘Superjuffie’ series, about a schoolteacher who turns out to be an animal-rescuing superhero. In 2018, the film version of the first book was the most successful Dutch family movie of the previous two years. In 2017, Schotveld wrote Kattensoep, the Children’s Book Week gift, 347,000 copies of which were given away in Dutch bookshops. Her series about Botje the robot is also popular with young readers. Schotveld’s books have been translated into Albanian, Chinese, Italian, Korean, Turkish and Farsi.

The King’s Frog Legs and Other Fairy Tales

(Van Holkema & Warendorf, 2018, 144 pages)

‘Normal, normal – what is normal?’ replies the fairy when the king asks if he’s going to have a normal child. This is perhaps the key sentence of this sparkling book of fairy tales. Because there’s room for everyone in Janneke Schotveld’s fifteen long stories. Roles are reversed, and there’s no lack of diversity in the words or the pictures: from a lesbian princess to an enchanted headscarf and a black prince who is rescued from his tower by a brave lady knight.

Author

Janneke Schotveld

The King’s Frog Legs and Other Fairy Tales

Translations