Els Pelgrom
Els Pelgrom (1934) debuted in 1977 with 'De kinderen van het achtste woud' (The Winter When Time Was Frozen), in which she writes about her memories of the war. It was one of the first children’s books about war without clichéd heroes or villains and it immediately won her the Dutch Gouden Griffel children’s literature prize.
An impressive string of works followed, for which she received the Theo Thijssen Prize, the Dutch triennial State Award for youth literature, in 1994. Her work is amongst the finest youth literature of the nineteen eighties and includes Kleine Sofie en Lange Wapper (Little Sophie and Lanky Flop) (1984), Het onbegonnen feest (Impossible Party)(1987) and De eikelvreters (The Acorn Eaters) (1989). Her writing is characterised by the blend of reality and fantasy into a credible whole, by a penchant for folk culture and by the focus on the underdog, the misplaced, the ‘unfortunate’ child, who is, however, never pitiful.