Simon van der Geest (b. 1978) is one of the most remarkable new writers of children’s books in the Netherlands. With only his second children’s book, Dissus, Van der Geest won the most important Dutch children’s book prize last year, the Gouden Griffel, and by then film rights to his debut, Yellow Grass, had already been sold. Van der Geest also writes for the theatre.
(Querido Kind, 2009, 104 pages)
Why should a foreign publisher have your book translated?
Simon: Yellow Grass is a wonderful story about a girl called Fieke, who has a lot of courage and loads of imagination. One day she unzips her tent at a French campsite and finds that her parents have left without her. Together with the runaway Jantwan, she comes up with a plan to fi nd them. People have told me that it’s a fantastic read. One girl said she was laughing so much she fell out of bed… I want children all over the world to have that same pleasure!
(Querido Kind, 2010, 120 pages)
Dissus is a modern boy in a cool pair of long shorts and a tracksuit top, who finds himself in a dream adventure with nine classmates. The ten friends have to fight their way past giants, monsters and sorceresses, including Farmer One-Eye, Circe and the Scylla 2000. One boy after another meets a sticky end.
(Querido Kind, 2012, 240 pages)
In the secret cellar under the shed, Hidde, an insecure ten-year-old, has an ‘insect lab’ where he studies slugs, grasshoppers and stag beetles. But his brother Jeppe wants to turn the cellar into a music room and he declares war on Hidde: scram, and take your creepy-crawlies with you.
(Querido Kind, 2019, 388 pages)
Any subject is allowed for the school project, as long as it has something to do with biology. So Eva (12) decides to make her project about biological fathers. She doesn’t know much about that subject, as her own father returned to Suriname before she was born. Her mum was left behind with ‘a belly with a beginning in it. The beginning of me.’ And now she will hardly say a word about Eva’s dad.
